Oral Answers to Questions

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

The Deputy Prime Minister was asked—

Electoral Pilots

Colin Challen: If he will make a statement about local electoral pilots.

Nick Raynsford: For the 2003 local elections we approved a wide range of pilots, 33 involving all-postal ballots and 17 involving e-voting pilots, which covered in total some 6.4 million electors. The initial headline results are encouraging; the average turnout for all-postal pilots was close to 50 per cent., and where there was e-voting about a fifth of voters opted to use electronic methods. We are now awaiting the Electoral Commission's detailed evaluation, which we will want to consider carefully and to which we will respond in the autumn.

Colin Challen: I welcome my right hon. Friend's reply because it shows that the pilots are finding new ways to get people involved in our democratic processes. I urge him, however, to read early-day motion 174, in my name, which refers to the potential for fraud in electronic voting methods. There is evidence from the United States, where some of those systems have been used extensively, that there are no proper controls or means of verifying whether fraud or other deficiencies have occurred. The Government need to read that early-day motion very carefully.

Nick Raynsford: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about the benefits of pilots that appear to be turning around the decline in participation in elections. All Members of the House should welcome the evidence that a number of the pilots have been very successful in increasing turnout.
	I agree also that it is vital to have safeguards against the risk of fraud, and I can assure my hon. Friend that the electronic voting systems used in the pilots all include measures to provide the audit trail required to verify that any ballot paper has not been altered or lost. We are absolutely clear about that. Looking at his early-day motion, I have to say that we are not convinced of the merits of a paper audit trail, which could undermine the security and secrecy of the ballot and prove unnecessarily bureaucratic. However, we are committed to proper audit and control systems, and we will be looking carefully at the Electoral Commission's recommendations.

Eric Pickles: We all want to see an increase in turnout, but we do not want it to be achieved on the basis of "vote early, vote often". Many returning officers, and professionals from all parties, have expressed worries about vote rigging in all-postal ballots. Detective Chief Inspector David Churchill of West Midlands fraud squad said that
	"the current electoral system is based on trust and that trust is being eroded . . . The new postal voting system provides an opportunity for malpractice."
	Now that the pilots have been in place for some time, what lessons about fraud has the right hon. Gentleman learned, and what measures does he intend to introduce to tighten the procedures to ensure that we preserve the sanctity of the ballot box?

Nick Raynsford: We are absolutely committed to ensuring that the ballot remains as secure against fraud as possible. The hon. Gentleman will know that any electoral system is potentially open to fraud, and it is essential that there are safeguards. That is why, for all the pilots that we have run, we have ensured that there is proper evaluation, and particular attention has been paid to any allegations of fraud, which have all been investigated. The Electoral Commission is considering that in its report, which we expect to receive on 31 July, and we will obviously give a full response when we have received its recommendations.

Chris Ruane: Will my right hon. Friend look not only at the issue of declining participation, but at that of declining electorates? He will be aware of a parliamentary question that I tabled recently about a massive drop in the size of the electorate in more than 100 seats in the United Kingdom. Some of those decreases are unaccounted for. Will my right hon. Friend look into the reasons for them? Seventy-five of the decreases are in Labour seats.

Nick Raynsford: We are in regular discussion with the Electoral Commission about measures to ensure that the registration system for elections is as thorough and accurate as possible. We certainly share my hon. Friend's concern to ensure that there is no unjustified decline in the number of people registered to vote, as those who are not registered are consequently denied their entitlement to vote. We shall certainly continue to do all that we can to ensure that there are effective electoral registration measures.

Patrick Cormack: May I endorse the notes of caution sounded by the hon. Member for Morley and Rothwell (Mr. Challen) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles)? Does the Minister accept that the vote is indeed a precious possession and people should regard it as such? We should think of the people of South Africa and how they responded when they first had the vote. Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that we do not devalue the importance of the vote by making the process too easy and therefore open to abuse?

Nick Raynsford: I do not believe that making it easier for people to exercise their democratic right devalues the process. It is important to ensure that proper safeguards are in place to uphold the integrity of the ballot. However, in an age when people are much more used to responding quickly to a variety of other transactions, using electronic or postal means rather than going in person to an office, it seems logical that the same principle should apply to voting. It is right to give people a greater opportunity to vote by post and electronic means where appropriate safeguards are in place. I hope that the hon. Gentleman shares our satisfaction with the evidence that we are beginning to turn the corner in terms of participation, because declining participation in elections should deeply concern us all.

Fire Service (Wales)

Wayne David: If he will make a statement on the implications of fire service reform for fire services in Wales.

Phil Hope: The fire and rescue service White Paper published on 30 June makes clear our commitment to devolve responsibility for the fire and rescue service in Wales to the National Assembly for Wales. We will ensure that devolution is consistent with broader emergency and civil contingency arrangements, and that the capacity for a UK-wide response to any terrorist threat, or other threat, is maintained. In the meantime, we will discuss with the National Assembly for Wales and the Local Government Association how best to deliver the robust regional management arrangements that we consider essential to deliver the modernisation of the fire and rescue service.

Wayne David: I thank the Minister for his reply and for his commitment to sorting out the present shambles of the fire service. Will he reinforce that commitment by confirming that we will have nothing less than a fire and rescue service that saves more lives and reduces the number of injuries?

Phil Hope: I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. He is concerned that we have the best organised fire and rescue service. Implementation of integrated risk management plans will mean deployment of resources based on risk to life rather than building density. The need to refocus the fire service from intervention to prevention to help save more lives is at the heart of our White Paper.

Simon Thomas: I very much welcome what the Minister says about devolving the fire service to the National Assembly. That is right and proper as part of the process of devolution, as it has been called. Will he say a little more about two matters? First, will the pay and conditions of firefighters be devolved, and how will that work in a devolved structure? Secondly, will the financing of the fire and rescue service in Wales be done through the Barnett formula or alternative arrangements?

Phil Hope: Pay is a matter for local government employers. The Welsh fire and rescue authorities receive revenue funding for the service they provide from the principal councils within each brigade area. In turn, those councils receive revenue support from the National Assembly. However, the financial implications of devolution will be considered as part of wider discussions on the transfer of functions. My officials are in discussions with their counterparts in the Welsh Assembly to take the matter forward.

Huw Edwards: Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that in most rural areas of Wales, including Monmouthshire, the fire service is provided by the retained fire service? Many of those firefighters work full-time as well as working for the fire service. What improvement in the pay and conditions of the retained fire service will come about as a result of the recent modernisation?

Phil Hope: My hon. Friend is right to highlight the important role that retained firefighters play in the fire service not just in Wales and rural areas, but across the country. The fire and rescue service White Paper spells out our commitment to ensure that retained firefighters and full-time firefighters get better pay and conditions. We have agreed a modernisation agenda, linked to pay, that will greatly improve the pay and conditions of those firefighters over the next two years.

Roger Williams: Following on from that answer, there is difficulty in getting 24-hour cover in rural areas in Wales because of the problem of attracting retained firemen. Part of the solution is to encourage more women to participate in the service. Do the Government have plans to encourage more women to fulfil that vital public service?

Phil Hope: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We want a fire and rescue service that more closely reflects the communities that it serves. We want more women recruited, trained and deployed as firefighters in all ranks and to carry out all roles that firefighters are asked to play. The new role of firefighters—the focus on prevention—will, I think, attract more women to the fire service, where they will be involved fully in all the roles that every firefighter will be expected to perform under the modernisation procedures.

House-building Programme

Michael Fabricant: What plans he has to increase the national house-building programme; and if he will make a statement.

John Prescott: The national house-building programme is for 2.2 million houses, of which 930,000 houses are planned in the London, south-east and midlands areas by 2016. The step change that I announced to the House in the recent sustainable communities plan identified the fact that a further 200,000 new homes in London, the south-east and the midlands were needed to meet the high demand, and that represents a 20 per cent. increase.

Michael Fabricant: I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his answer. On 9 June, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when making a statement about the euro, spoke about the need for extra housing over and above both the current supply and the Department's plans. How will the Deputy Prime Minister respond?

John Prescott: As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Chancellor initiated the Barker review to look at the mismatch in housing supply and demand. Indeed, there was a breakfast meeting this morning with all the stakeholders. We are clearly concerned to see what we can do, not only about house numbers within sustainable communities, but about the relevance of that matter to the debate on the entry into Europe to which the Chancellor referred.

Oona King: Under the previous Administration, there was chronic under-investment in housing, but we have doubled investment. However, will my right hon. Friend consider the problem of overcrowding? I took one of his predecessors to see a family of 16 people who are living in two bedrooms. Will he review the overcrowding standard that dates from the 1930s and further increase investment in housing?

John Prescott: My hon. Friend is right to point out the problem, particularly in her constituency, of high demand and low levels of social housing, which was made much more difficult by the right-to-buy facility introduced at a cost of £40 billion in subsidies. We are changing those priorities, and more resources are being provided, as the step change demonstrates. However, I will not kid my hon. Friend—a considerable number of extra houses, both rented and new housing, need to be provided, and we are doing as much as we can to meet that demand.

Edward Davey: Does the Deputy Prime Minister accept that his ambitious plans for house building will fail miserably unless there is a huge increase in the number of trained construction workers? Does he acknowledge that the Construction Industry Training Board estimates that in the next three years we need an extra 76,000 trained workers to enter the industry in each year? Why, therefore, has the Government's flagship scheme "Ambition: Construction" trained only 171 people in its first year?

John Prescott: The hon. Gentleman has a real point about the problem of training in the industry, which has existed for decades. It is a real problem, and we have to find a solution, but I am not sure that the solution is to abolish the Department, which is the Liberals' policy. However, the hon. Gentleman is quite right—construction is the one industry that still has a levy for training and still fails to provide enough trained people, whether builders, plumbers, electricians or other kinds of workers. The 175 people to whom he referred are taking part in training that is a return to the old kind of apprenticeship system, and we want that to continue. However, it will not meet the demand for housing or provide all the skilled labour that is required, which is why I am putting a great deal of emphasis on off-site manufacturing of houses—£250 million has been provided this year solely for houses built in that way. That relieves some of the pressure on the demand for skilled labour.

Colin Burgon: Does my right hon. Friend agree that any effective house-building programme should have at its heart the effective use of our brownfield sites? Bearing in mind his recent visit to the millennium village at Allerton Bywater, does he agree that that is a classic example of building on brownfield sites better to protect our green fields?

John Prescott: My hon. Friend is right. I enjoyed my visit to Allerton Bywater, which is on an old pit site and is one of the millennium villages that we planned. The site is difficult, but they are making great progress there, and I was very encouraged when I saw it. I noticed also that it has increased the green belt in that area. Using brownfield sites and increasing the green belt is in line with our policy.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Can the Deputy Prime Minister explain why, in the seventh year of this new Labour Government, house building is now at such a level that it led the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee to come up with a shocking statement in a recent report? It says:
	"The number of homeless households in temporary accommodation is now the highest ever."
	How can that be under this Government?

John Prescott: I take the hon. Gentleman's point about the Select Committee. I do not always agree with every analysis by every Select Committee and we have exchanges about that, but the hon. Gentleman is on to a fair point about the increase in homelessness. We inherited a difficult problem, as he recognises. Under the previous Government's housing policy, half a million homes were repossessed, 1.2 million households suffered from negative equity, there was a £19 billion backlog in local authority housing, and the Government's priority was £40 billion to subsidise the right-to-buy scheme. We had to change that. We are increasing the housing supply; we have reduced bed-and-breakfast accommodation and homelessness—

James Gray: It has got worse.

John Prescott: Well, in a number of areas there has been an increase, but I can show that in the period since 1997 the position has improved. Under both Governments, not enough has been done. We have not provided enough houses. That is why we have embarked on a step change in the policy.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: We are now in the seventh year of the new Labour Government, and the situation has got substantially worse. The same departmental Select Committee report states that we need to deliver an additional 35,000 affordable houses. How will the Government do that?

John Prescott: The step change seems to be a change in the Leader of the Opposition. We have had to reverse the situation. We have increased the number of houses being built and an ambitious programme is under way. We have dealt with the backlog of unfit housing—800,000 houses have been improved. We have a target to improve 1 million houses in a 10-year period, and we are on course to achieve that. We are improving rented accommodation, refurbishing council house estates and building new houses, but, as I have told the House time and again, it would be better if we could get a consensus on improvement, rather than the party-politicking that the hon. Gentleman obviously wants to pursue.

Social Inclusion

Linda Perham: If he will make a statement on the role of his Department in promoting social inclusion.

Yvette Cooper: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister works with other Departments and local agencies to address the problems faced by deprived areas, in particular to tackle problems highlighted by the social exclusion unit. There has been important progress, including, for example, a 10 per cent. drop in teenage pregnancies over the past three years.

Linda Perham: What message can my hon. Friend give to local authorities such as the London borough of Redbridge, run by the self-styled party for the vulnerable, which has abolished cabinet responsibility for social inclusion and torpedoed the project for promoting social inclusion?

Yvette Cooper: I am sorry to hear that the council has not taken social exclusion seriously. There are unjust inequalities in this country. It is not fair that people's chances in life should depend on where they live and what jobs their parents do. There are a series of investment programmes to tackle social exclusion, including sure start. Wise local government works with those programmes, not just because they are good for those on low incomes, but because they are good for the whole community.

Vincent Cable: Does the Minister agree that one of the best ways to promote social inclusion is to incorporate affordable housing in high-income housing developments? Is she aware that significant numbers of developers are evading their planning obligations by building small, exclusive developments under the 14-house threshold? Will she address that anomaly urgently?

Yvette Cooper: The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue, of which the Government are aware. There are discretionary powers for local government in that regard. It is an important matter that needs to be addressed. That is why the Government have a wide programme to promote affordable housing and housing for key workers in particular areas.

Decent Homes Target

Andrew Love: What progress his Department is making in meeting its decent homes target.

Keith Hill: I am pleased to inform the House that the 2001 English house conditions survey report, published yesterday, shows that we have reduced the number of non-decent homes in the social sector by more than 700,000. When we came to power in 1997, we inherited a situation where there were about 2,300,000 non-decent social sector homes. Forward plans from local authorities show that we expect to meet our target of a one-third reduction by next year, and we are on track for all dwellings owned by local authorities and registered social landlords to meet the decent homes standard by 2010.

Andrew Love: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that the decent housing standard depends very much on the large-scale voluntary transfer programme, which has now slipped well below the target of 200,000 houses a year? What action are the Government taking to ensure that the programme continues, so that we can be assured in this Parliament that we will complete the improvement within the 10-year time scale?

Keith Hill: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right that, in order to meet the decent homes target, a good measure of property transfer will be required. It is worth bearing it in mind that we have a spending programme for housing of £22 billion over the next few years. A number of local authorities believe that they will be able to deliver the decent homes target by using existing funding streams. Elsewhere, the programme of private finance initiative stock transfers and arm's length management organisations will be required. We are working very closely with local authorities and registered social landlords to secure that objective, which we believe we will attain.

Henry Bellingham: Is the Minister aware that a number of developments in my constituency that originally received a lot of local support have now become highly controversial on account of the relevant planning policy guidelines? In one case, density has been increased from roughly 60 to 150 houses. Surely, he should be trusting local planners and local people and not relying on blunt PPGs as an instrument.

Keith Hill: We expect to co-operate with local planners, but the fact is that, under the previous Government, substantial bites were made into the green belt. This Government are committed to preserving the green belt. Indeed, no fewer than 30,000 hectares of green belt have been restored over the past six years. We believe that the future is to build as extensively as possible on brownfield sites, which will require high-density building. However, what we say above all is that we have to get away from the very poor quality of design that was so often implemented in the past under the previous Administration. We place the central requirement on decent design in high-density building.

Sustainable Communities

Siobhain McDonagh: What steps he is taking to implement the Liveability agenda in the development of sustainable communities.

John Prescott: Liveability, which is about the quality of our local environment—the streets, parks and open spaces—is at the heart of the sustainable communities plan that I announced to the House a short while ago. We have increased the budget from which local authorities fund improvements to the local environment by more than £1 billion for the next three years. In addition, we have set aside an extra £201 million specifically to help transform our parks and green spaces and to improve urban design and skills—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is a great deal of noise in the Chamber.

Siobhain McDonagh: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Will he ensure that local authorities have the right powers to tackle the problems of graffiti, which blight the lives of people in my constituency and constituencies throughout the country?

John Prescott: The House is well aware of the campaign that my hon. Friend conducted for removing cars abandoned on the streets. We introduced powers to assist with the purposes of that campaign, which has helped every constituency. I am well aware of the survey that she recently conducted on tackling antisocial behaviour, which showed that crime had fallen by 27 per cent. in her constituency. We are looking closely at the other matters on which she is campaigning. If she is as successful as she was in getting the Government to introduce powers in respect of abandoned cars, her efforts will help to make improvements and to tackle graffiti and other problems of antisocial behaviour in her constituency.

Graham Brady: In Altrincham and Sale, we do not have sufficient secondary school places for the number of families seeking places—yet flat building and infill development are progressing apace. The local authority says that planning guidance does not let it stop that building, as it cannot take into account the absence of school places. When will the Government take that into account and revise planning guidance accordingly?

John Prescott: As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is a great deal of discussion about the planning changes that are necessary to deal with some of the current deficiencies. Indeed, some of those changes feature in legislation that is currently before the House. As for investment in education, we are putting a considerable amount into education—[Interruption.] Well, I think that we have 25,000 more teachers, plus 80,000 helpers. Criticism from an Opposition who, when they were in government, slashed teacher numbers and the quality of education, is a bit too much to accept.

Council Tax

Paul Burstow: What estimate he has made of the cost to local authorities of administration of (a) council tax and (b) council tax benefit in 2002–03.

Phil Hope: In 2002–03, council tax benefit administration costs in England totalled £205 million. Council tax collection costs totalled £318 million and have been decreasing in both absolute and real terms since council tax was introduced.

Paul Burstow: I thank the Minister for that answer. Given the huge increase in council tax in the current year and the costs of collection and administration that he describes, will the Department's balance of funding review consider not only the balance of funding, but the abolition of the council tax and its replacement with a fairer form of taxation such as local income tax?

Phil Hope: As I said, council tax collection costs have gone down. We have all seen in the press the latest uncosted, ill-thought-through, back-of-a-fag-packet proposals of the Liberal Democrats, with a local income tax of 3p in the pound and a huge bureaucracy dumped on local government. We have devolved powers to Scotland, Wales, London and the English regions, and we have given a fairer deal to the council tax payer.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked—

Engagements

Christopher Chope: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 16 July.

Tony Blair: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I will have further such meetings later today.

Christopher Chope: Does the Prime Minister share my concern that two thirds of the British people do not trust the Prime Minister?

Tony Blair: I hope that what people do recognise is that a Government who have delivered the lowest inflation, lowest mortgage rates and lowest unemployment for decades, the best ever school results, and now record investment in the national health service, are a Government whom this country will be pleased to return at the next general election.

Jim Knight: My constituents support the tougher sentences for murderers and sex offenders in the Criminal Justice Bill. Given what has been going on in the other place, can the Prime Minister assure me that, unlike Conservative Members, he is committed to seeing that Bill through?

Tony Blair: We are committed to seeing it through. The behaviour of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Opposition in opposing measures that will protect people in circumstances where there is an attempt to intimidate juries and where, as senior police officers are telling us, it is absolutely essential to deal with organised crime, is absolutely shameful.

Iain Duncan Smith: The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee has said that it is "most unlikely" that Dr. Kelly was the prime source for the story about the Government's manipulation of intelligence, and that he has been "poorly treated by the Government". Will the Prime Minister now apologise?

Tony Blair: The Foreign Affairs Committee has given its opinion as to the source. We have said to the Ministry of Defence that we do not know who the source is. The BBC, however, is a position to know who the source is, and can surely say whether this man is that source.

Iain Duncan Smith: The Prime Minister is rapidly becoming a stranger to the truth. On 10 July, The Times carried a quote from No. 10 saying that it was "99 per cent. convinced" that the Gilligan source was David Kelly. So No. 10 did believe that it was David Kelly. A Labour member of the Committee says that the civil servant has been used as a fall guy by the Government. This has all the fingerprints of Alastair Campbell, who is using the machinery of Government to pursue a personal vendetta. How long is the Prime Minister going to let this continue; or was Alastair Campbell correct when he said, "Tony couldn't cope without me"?

Tony Blair: The Ministry of Defence has made it clear that of course it does not know who the source is—only one body does, and that is the BBC. If there is some doubt about it, it is very simple for the BBC to clear it up. I should have thought that it is perfectly obvious that all the BBC needs to do is simply to say yes or no. It can do that, so why does it not?

Iain Duncan Smith: We have had Formula 1, Mittal, Hinduja, Robinson, Mandelson and now the dodgy dossiers. Alastair Campbell and the Prime Minister have created a culture of deceit and spin at the heart of Government. When will the Prime Minister realise that until he sacks Campbell, no one will believe a word that he says any more?

Tony Blair: The right hon. Gentleman says that no one can believe us about Iraq, yet last year, he told us that he believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction capability and that he fully supported action against Iraq—[Interruption.] The Conservatives are now apparently calling for a full-scale judicial inquiry into intelligence. Are they saying that they were duped and misled? The right hon. Gentleman supported action against Iraq. The Conservatives' current position is to claim that they were somehow misled over Iraq. The worst insult that I can level at them is that they are displaying opportunism worthy of the Liberal Democrats.

Ian Cawsey: Since 2,000 skilled manufacturing jobs in east Yorkshire depend on a Government decision to award a contract to British Aerospace for Hawk jets, will my right hon. Friend make an early announcement to secure those jobs and provide a first-class British product for our military?

Tony Blair: We are in the course of making a decision on the matter. Of course, we want to do our best for the British defence industry, but that must be done on a cost-competitive basis. We are balancing those two factors and when we reach a decision, we shall announce it in the normal way.

Charles Kennedy: Given that the Prime Minister previously told me that he stands by the accuracy of the assertions in the original September dossier on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, how does he square the warning about the 45-minute imminence of an attack with Dr. Kelly's evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday? Dr. Kelly has worked for the United Nations Special Commission as well as the Ministry of Defence. He said that such a scenario was very unlikely. Which is the correct version?

Tony Blair: It is also worth pointing out that Dr. Kelly made it clear that he believed that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction capability. In the September dossier, we said that we had received such intelligence. That was cleared by the Joint Intelligence Committee. The allegation that the claim had been inserted into the dossier against the wishes of the security services by No. 10 Downing street was completely untrue. Since the right hon. Gentleman and Liberal Democrat Members have made that allegation, perhaps he will now say that he agrees that it is false.

Charles Kennedy: Given the evidence that was offered to the Committee yesterday, was the 45-minute warning based in substance and fact or not? The Prime Minister makes one claim, the expert before the Committee makes another. Does not the continuing contradiction underline the need for the Prime Minister to announce before the summer recess the establishment of a time-limited independent inquiry, under a judge, to get to the bottom of the matter in order to restore public confidence once and for all?

Tony Blair: As I understand it, the basis of the call for a public inquiry is that an issue arose in relation to 45 minutes because we had inserted false information into the dossier. [Interruption.] Now Liberal Democrat Members claim that they had no intention of making such a claim. I emphasise to the right hon. Gentleman that the intelligence in the September dossier was cleared by the Joint Intelligence Committee. The basis of the claim—that the information was inserted into the dossier against the advice of the security services—is untrue. The right hon. Gentleman now says that he is not making that claim; he could have fooled me.

Chris McCafferty: Following Monday's publication of the second and third reports into the Harold Shipman inquiry, does my right hon. Friend agree with Dame Janet that the death certification process and the coroner system require urgent and radical change? When will the Government publish their response to her inquiry?

Tony Blair: We shall of course look very carefully at the recommendations that have been made. It is also extremely important that we recognise that the Shipman case, although absolutely horrific, does not in any shape or form reflect on the work that GPs do in this country, because the vast majority of them do a wonderful job for our national health service. I agree entirely, however, that we must scrutinise the recommendations very carefully, particularly those relating to coroners' courts.

Cheryl Gillan: As the Prime Minister's country home is in Buckinghamshire, he will no doubt be familiar with the pride that we take in our selective school system, and with the great results that all our children get in all our schools. With the Education Secretary renewing his threats against our grammar schools, will the Prime Minister confirm that he will stand by his word and will neither change the existing ballot system nor introduce legislation to abolish our grammar schools?

Tony Blair: I certainly stand by what has been said, and I would also like to point out to the hon. Lady that no grammar school has been closed under this Government. I hope she realises that the most important thing is surely to look at the school results not just of the small number of schools that are selective but of the vast majority that are not. I hope that she will also acknowledge that, under this Government, results in the non-selective schools in her constituency have gone up hugely for primary school students, at GCSE and at A-level.

Jeff Ennis: Is the Prime Minister aware of the document entitled "A Hard Day's Work Never Killed Anyone: Negligent Bosses Did", which was launched recently by the Transport and General Workers Union and which deals with the issue of corporate killing? What does the Prime Minister think about this document, and will he consider introducing a Bill in the next Parliament to deal with the issue of corporate killing?

Tony Blair: As my hon. Friend knows, we have pledged to introduce legislation on this issue, although it is important to recognise that this is to do with corporate responsibility and that we do not believe that charges should be levelled against individual directors. This is an important issue, however, and we have made our position clear on it. I am not aware of the precise details of the TGWU document, but I shall read it now that my hon. Friend has drawn it to my attention.

Iain Duncan Smith: What should patients do if their local hospital has no stars under the Government's rating system?

Tony Blair: I hope that they will carry on supporting the work being done in those hospitals to improve them and to make their care better, and that they will realise that it is only as a result of what this Government have done that they even know what the proper estimate of their hospital is.

Iain Duncan Smith: Would it not be better for patients simply to ignore the ratings gimmick? As the new chairman of the British Medical Association says of the ratings,
	"they measure little more than hospitals' ability to meet political targets."
	Will the Prime Minister now confirm that, of the 20 hospitals with the worst rate of hospital-acquired infection, 13 of them today get the top rating for cleanliness?

Tony Blair: The range of indicators that the Commission for Health Improvement takes into account covers all sorts of things, including hospital infections. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman has now pledged that the Conservative party will abolish targets. There are targets relating to cleanliness, to waiting, to the treatment of breast cancer, and to in-patient and out-patient treatment, and I think that they are fully justified. On the right hon. Gentleman's particular point, the whole range of indicators is taken into account in these circumstances. That is why it is sensible that we provide the CHI with that information. The right hon. Gentleman is now saying that he would deny it to the commission.

Iain Duncan Smith: The statistic that I have just mentioned shows categorically that this whole set-up is a gimmick. It tells us all that we need to know about this Government and the way in which they run the health service. As the audit commissioner said, we now have "quick fixes" to meet Government targets, rather than long-term reforms to serve patients better. With an NHS that puts bureaucrats and targets ahead of patients and doctors, is it any wonder than no one believes a word that this Prime Minister says any more?

Tony Blair: If the right hon. Gentleman says that these things do not matter, let us just have a look at his own constituency to see what the national health service has been doing as a result of the extra investment there. There has been a 38 per cent. reduction in waiting lists for in-patients and a 73 per cent. reduction in out-patient waiters over 13 weeks. [Interruption.] He says that he does not believe that. Perhaps he will tell us whether he thinks it is true that, on 21 June this year, a £2.5 million emergency medicine centre was opened at Whipps Cross hospital with 24 new medical assessment beds.

Iain Duncan Smith: Nonsense.

Tony Blair: Well, it is either there or it is not. I think that Conservative Members should go and have a look.
	As for believing what I say, we can believe one thing said by the right hon. Gentleman's health spokesman, the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox). This is what he is on the record as saying:
	"The first [phase] is to persuade the public the NHS is not working"—
	[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot hear what the Prime Minister is saying.

Tony Blair: I am about to explain why we are not going to follow this policy. Okay? This is the policy that the Government are not going to follow. We are not going to follow a policy that states
	"We've got a problem in this country where the NHS and health care have been synonymous. We're here to break that."
	We are not going to follow that policy. The hon. Member for Woodspring went on
	"That means we get money, raise money from people through tax, certainly by health insurance, and even more so it means from self-pay."
	We are not going to follow that policy either. We are going to carry on following the policies that we are following.

Ian Lucas: Community support officers are welcomed up and down the country because they make a large and visible contribution to local policing. In Wrexham, following the disturbances that we experienced last month, there is now a need for such policing. The local police and local people want community support officers immediately. Will the Prime Minister please have a quiet word with the Home Office, and ask it to implement this Labour policy as soon as possible?

Tony Blair: We will certainly take account of what my hon. Friend has said. As he probably knows, there are many community support officers working throughout the country. I consider their link to antisocial behaviour orders very important. With the Anti-social Behaviour Bill coming into effect, and given our ability to take more effective action against antisocial behaviour, I think that the cause of community support officers, and increasing them—

Michael Fabricant: How about more police?

Tony Blair: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. I almost forgot to mention this, but he has reminded me. Yes, as well as more community support officers there are now record numbers of police officers.

Michael Weir: Does the Prime Minister recall Harold Macmillan's famous dictum that no Prime Minister should be in conflict with the Brigade of Guards, the Church or the National Union of Mineworkers? This Prime Minister is now in conflict with the United Nations arms inspectors, the BBC and the Central Intelligence Agency. Is it any wonder that people are now beginning to ask whether the real problem is a dodgy dossier or a dodgy Prime Minister?

Tony Blair: The hon. Gentleman prepared that one pretty carefully.
	The hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to have been against the war from the very beginning. There are Members who, for perfectly honourable reasons, take that position. Let me say this to the hon. Gentleman, however. When we reflect on Security Council resolution 1441, which expressed the unanimous UN view that weapons of mass destruction were a threat to the world, when we see Iraq getting a governing council on a broadly representative basis for the first time in decades, and when we know that—according to the UN, not the British Government—there are some 300,000 missing people and 80 mass graves, I happen to believe, still, that we did the right thing.

Lynne Jones: On 3 July, the Government finally admitted that they had not passed to the International Atomic Energy Agency the evidence on which the Prime Minister based his statement to the House that we know that Saddam has been trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Is the Prime Minister not concerned that the failure of the source of that intelligence to pass it on to the IAEA for scrutiny constitutes a breach of article 10 of Security Council resolution 1441, and would he still use such words of absolute certainty today?

Tony Blair: I stand by entirely the claim that was made last September. Let me make two points to my hon. Friend. First, as she knows, the intelligence on which we based that was not the so-called forged documents that have been put to the IAEA. The IAEA has accepted that it received no such forged documents from British intelligence: we had independent intelligence to that effect. Secondly, it may be worth pointing out to the House and to the public that it is not as if the link between Niger and Iraq was some invention of the CIA or Britain. We know that in the 1980s Iraq purchased more than 270 tonnes of uranium from Niger. Therefore, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility—let us at least put it like that—that Iraq went back to Niger again. That is why I stand by entirely the statement that was made in the September dossier.

Hugo Swire: Is it beyond the bounds of possibility that the Prime Minister will renege on his commitment to reduce the number of Scottish Members of Parliament at Westminster?

Tony Blair: No, we made that commitment clear and we will of course carry it through.

Michael Jabez Foster: Some 3,000 pensioners—among the least well-off in my constituency—are £30 a week better off as a result of the minimum income guarantee, over and above what they would have received under the old income support from the Tories. Some 5,000 more will know that thrift pays when the pension credit comes in later this year. What will my right hon. Friend do to ensure that people do claim those benefits?

Tony Blair: There are already more than 1 million pensioner households on the new system, and of course we must ensure that the information gets to pensioners. In addition to all the other help that we are giving to the poorest pensioners—additional help with television licences for the over-75s, for example, the winter fuel allowance and so on—hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country will benefit from the new pension credit. That is why we remain committed to introducing it and will not do what the Conservatives would do—withdraw it and abolish it.

Andrew Robathan: The Prime Minister now rests his case for war on Iraq on the successful removal of Saddam Hussein's evil regime. I supported the war and I applaud that success. Before the war, the Prime Minister explicitly ruled out regime change as a reason for war. Indeed, it was Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that were the casus belli. Can he now reassure the House that we and the people of this country were not duped, and that British soldiers were not sent to their deaths on a false premise?

Tony Blair: I really am surprised that the hon. Gentleman and other Conservative Members now say that, because at the time—let us recall—they and their Front Benchers were urging me to take action on the issue of weapons of mass destruction, wholly outside the dossier and the evidence. I do not accept that people were misled at all. I stand entirely by what was in the dossier and, in case anyone should doubt that weapons of mass destruction were an issue that did not just preoccupy the British or American Governments, in resolution 1441 the whole of the UN Security Council—not just Britain and America—agreed that they were an issue. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman, like others, should wait for the Iraq survey group to complete its work and then we can judge this on the basis of evidence, not speculation.

Andy King: My right hon. Friend is right to point out the significant progress that has been made in addressing poverty in the United Kingdom, including the winter fuel payment, the pension credit and the child tax credit, among others. Colleagues in this House and in the other place have asked for a meeting with my right hon. Friend to consider the matter of research into the income level necessary for healthy living. Will he agree to meet with us in the very near future to discuss that matter?

Tony Blair: Of course I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and his colleagues. It is worth pointing out that it is not only the working families tax credit and other benefits and tax credits that are assisting people. We have had a record increase in child benefit—up 25 per cent.—and for those on the disability income guarantee, we are helping some 133,000 of the poorest severely disabled people through the enhanced disability premium. This is all part of our attempt to make sure that we lift more people out of poverty. Already, since 1997, about half a million fewer children are in low-income households.

Paul Marsden: In 1998—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House must allow the hon. Gentleman to be heard.

Paul Marsden: The Prime Minister and I have had a few differences over the years, but he was right to say, in 1998, that the level of homelessness was a source of shame. However, since 1997, the number of homeless families in priority need has risen from 102,000 to 125,000. Has he not failed some of the most vulnerable people in our society?

Tony Blair: It is correct to say that homelessness remains a serious problem, but I would point out that the other side of the story is that we also gave commitments to cut the numbers of rough sleepers. We have achieved those commitments successfully.

Paul Farrelly: Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister join me and, I hope, all Staffordshire Members on both sides of the House, in congratulating our local police on securing the biggest reduction in crime of any force in England and Wales over the past year? However, does he accept that people in our constituencies and communities want to see more police on the beat so that they can feel safe? Therefore, will he say what steps are the Government taking to cut crime and antisocial behaviour even more than they have cut them already?

Tony Blair: First, I congratulate the Staffordshire police on their achievement in reducing crime in my hon. Friend's constituency. Whereas crime doubled when the Conservatives were in office, the British crime survey estimates show that crime has fallen by about 25 per cent. under this Government. However, the most important thing that we can do is not just to increase the number of police officers—which we are doing—but to introduce measures on criminal justice and antisocial behaviour. The Liberal Democrats oppose the antisocial behaviour measures. The Conservative party, as I said earlier, is resisting measures that will help to convict some of the worst organised criminals in this country. We cannot deal with crime unless we deal with organised crime as well.

Angela Watkinson: Does the Prime Minister agree with his chief inspector of schools that the exam system should undergo major reform? Or does he agree with the head teachers in my constituency, who want stability for their students and not more disruption and uncertainty?

Tony Blair: I certainly understand why the hon. Lady's head teachers, and others, say that they want stability. The Tomlinson report is a long-term look at what is happening in our exam system. Most people would like us to investigate that, to make sure that our exam system for 14 to 19-year-olds is up to the standard of other countries. Therefore, I do not think that it is wrong to have the report, and we will study its impact very carefully. However, I hope that the hon. Lady will agree that one of the things that her head teachers will welcome, despite the recent difficulties, is the record investment in our school system.

John McDonnell: Last year, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry informed the House that the review of the transport arrangements for Royal Mail would increase the volume of mail delivered by rail. However, this month Royal Mail announced that it is to withdraw its rail operation in its entirety. That flies in the face of the Government's integrated transport policy and environmental policy. The basis of the decision has become increasingly open to scrutiny. The Government are the only shareholder in Royal Mail, so will my right hon. Friend undertake a swift review of the decision? Will he meet a cross-party delegation of MPs interested in the matter? The delegation will include representatives of the work force that is affected, which is facing a potential loss of 500 jobs.

Tony Blair: I understand my hon. Friend's concerns, and I should be very happy to meet him and a delegation who will express those concerns in detail to me. The only thing that I hope that my hon. Friend realises is that the Government have to be very careful about interfering, and compelling a company—even one in which we are the shareholder—to do things that the company believes are not in its commercial interest. A careful balance has to be maintained in that respect.

Dominic Grieve: Why is the Prime Minister so poorly briefed? When he told the House this morning about the effect of his colleagues in the Lords—many of them Labour—taking out clauses in the Criminal Justice Bill he said that that would lead to a problem with jury nobbling, and that defendants would not be able to have a trial by judge alone where jury nobbling had taken place. In fact, it was made clear in yesterday's Lords debate that that was one area about which there was complete unanimity that there should be legislation. In those circumstances, who writes the Prime Minister's dossier? Is it Mr. Campbell? Is that why the right hon. Gentleman spouts this rubbish?

Tony Blair: I am astonished that the hon. Gentleman says that. As I understand it, the House of Lords is opposed to two elements. One relates to complex fraud trials, and is something that has been recommended over many, many years; otherwise, some of the worst criminals in the country get out of criminal charges. The second relates to intimidation. It is precisely in circumstances where the prosecution applies to the judge, saying that it believes that there is a risk of intimidation, that the judge has the power. That is the measure being opposed by the Conservative party and others, and they should cease their opposition to it.

Tony Cunningham: I recently met a constituent, Mrs. Yvonne Weir, whose son Mark was tragically killed by a drunken driver who fled the scene. The driver was well over the limit and had previous convictions for drink-driving. He was jailed, but he could be out and free within two years. Mrs. Weir feels that the justice system has very much let her down. What will the Government do to make sure that people who drink and drive and kill are properly punished?

Tony Blair: First, I offer my condolences and, I am sure, those of the whole House to the family of my hon. Friend's constituent. This is a huge issue for many, many people and we are looking at whether stronger penalties, involving further use of re-testing, should be applied. Although it is true that deaths attributed to drink-driving have fallen by nearly 50 per cent. in the last decade, alcohol is still a factor in about one in eight of all fatal crashes in this country, so I think that there is a case for looking at the issue again. Along with the other measures to strengthen penalties in the criminal justice system, this is one of the issues that we will look at.

BILL PRESENTED

Museums and Galleries

Mr. Edward O'Hara, supported by Tom Cox, Mr. Andrew Dismore, Mrs. Jackie Lawrence, Andy Burnham, Mr. Richard Allan and Mr. Kevin McNamara presented a Bill to provide for the trustees or board of certain museums and galleries and the Secretary of State to reach agreements relating to the return of objects or human remains, to the exchange of cultural objects or to international cultural co-operation; to enable the Secretary of State to make proposals for agreements and to issue directions in respect of agreements reached by him; to make provision arising from cases in which parties to an agreement in a country other than the United Kingdom are held not to have complied with the terms of an agreement; to provide for relevant museums and galleries to dispose of objects or human remains in their collections in pursuance of agreements or directions; to exempt exports of objects in pursuance of an agreement from cultural export controls; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 14 November, and to be printed [Bill 151].

UK Elections (Observers)

Jane Griffiths: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the appointment of observers at statutory elections and referendums in the United Kingdom; to make provision in respect of the observers; and for connected purposes.
	Every year, a number of hon. Members and many civil servants travel to different countries to observe elections in those countries. They travel around visiting polling stations and they sit in on the count to make sure that everything is done as it should be and to make a report on that. However, that travel is all one way; there are no observers at UK elections. Our law currently lists who can attend a polling station and a count, and observers are not included in that list—yet.
	In 1990, the UK agreed to the document published after the second conference on the human dimension of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Copenhagen in that year. Paragraph 8 stated:
	"The participating States consider that the presence of observers, both foreign and domestic, can enhance the electoral process for States in which elections are taking place. They therefore invite observers from any other CSCE participating States and any appropriate private institutions and organizations who may wish to do so to observe the course of their national election proceedings, to the extent permitted by law. They will also endeavour to facilitate similar access for election proceedings held below the national level. Such observers will undertake not to interfere in the electoral proceedings."
	The European Commission for Democracy through Law, known as the Venice Commission, a body of the Council of Europe, adopted an election evaluation guide at its meeting on 5 June 2003, which made the following statement about election observance or monitoring:
	"The monitoring bodies play an essential role in the conduct of the poll, particularly in safeguarding the poll's pluralism, equality and legality."
	So, we send people to observe elections in other countries, international bodies to which we have signed up support the observation of elections—in fact, they positively encourage election observation—but United Kingdom law does not allow someone into polling stations or the count to observe those elections. My Bill would change that. Why? The answer is in the statement from the Venice Commission, which says that election observation is a safeguard of an election's pluralism, equality and legality.
	Traditionally, it has been thought that election monitoring is something that has to be carried out in countries that are newer to elections to ensure that they "do it right". Yes, we have been having elections for some time in this country. Yes, we have experience, but that does not mean that we cannot learn from having separate eyes look upon what we do.
	When we vote, we are not asked for any identification. We can just present to the staff at the polling station and receive a ballot paper. It is not even necessary to have a polling card—someone can say a name and address and, as long as that name is registered on the electoral register at that address, the person can vote. In many countries, that would not happen. For example, no one in Armenia, which has recently had presidential and parliamentary elections, can vote without presenting their passport as proof of identity.
	I am not saying that we have a problem in this area. Only one constituent has ever contacted me because they turned up to vote and someone had already voted as them. However, it was only when I had the opportunity to observe the election in Armenia, where proof of identity is required before one can be issued with a ballot paper, that I thought about security and how that has an impact on the issuing of ballot papers.
	Another reason to introduce the measures in this Bill is that if we observe other people's elections why should they not be able to see ours? When I was in Armenia visiting a polling station, someone asked me why I should be allowed to enter when he would not be allowed to enter a polling station in the UK. He had a point. I know that that is something that may well have been embarrassing to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the past.
	The Electoral Commission reported on the 2001 general election. It said that the commission was contacted by a number of foreign delegations during the election campaign asking to observe the UK general election. Many more requests went direct to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and others involved in the administration of elections. In all cases, it was necessary to explain that there are strict legal regulations governing who can attend a polling station. So, if any right hon. or hon. Members were minded to be against this proposal because they perceived a lack of demand, I hope that I have shown that there is a demand for people to observe our elections.
	As part of its report, the Electoral Commission decided that there should be an investigation into the observation of UK elections. That has been carried out and the report was produced in April. It recommended that UK law should be changed to allow UK elections to be observed. It also recommended that staff of the Electoral Commission should be added to the list of people allowed access to a polling station, and that persons under 18 accompanying a registered elector should be allowed into a polling station.
	That is what this Bill sets out to do. Put simply, I wish to amend the Representation of the People Act 1983 to add observers, staff of the Electoral Commission and persons under 18 accompanying a registered elector to the list of people allowed into polling stations. The Bill would also add observers and staff of the Electoral Commission to the list of people allowed to attend the counting of votes. In both cases, the permission of the returning officer would be necessary.
	In compiling the report to which I referred, the Electoral Commission discussed the proposed changes that led to the second part of the Bill, which calls on the Secretary of State to issue regulations to establish a code that will govern the behaviour of election observers in polling stations and at the count. The Bill sets out that that should include who may apply to be an observer, how to apply to be an observer, a form of permission, extent of access, secrecy requirements, impartiality requirements, maintenance of order requirements, prohibition of interference in the electoral process, and finance.
	The Bill does not limit the content of the code to those items alone, as I realise that more may be necessary. I have listed those items because I believe that that is the minimum necessary to make the observation of elections work. That goes back again to the report of the Electoral Commission, which identified those as issues that need to be addressed to make it workable for people to observe our elections in the UK.
	Finally, an Italian philosopher, once quoted by Robert Kennedy, said:
	"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things."
	Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Jane Griffiths, Mr. Terry Davis, Kali Mountford, Tony Lloyd, Chris McCafferty, Keith Vaz, Geraldine Smith, Mr. David Atkinson, Mr. A. J. Beith and Mrs. Ann Cryer.

UK Elections (Observers)

Jane Griffiths accordingly presented a Bill to make provision for the appointment of observers at statutory elections and referendums in the United Kingdom; to make provision in respect of the observers; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 14 November, and to be printed [Bill 152].

Opposition Day
	 — 
	[14th Allotted Day]

Iraq

Mr. Speaker: I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. I also inform the House that there is a 12-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

Michael Ancram: I beg to move,
	That this House welcomes the Ninth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee on the Decision to go to war in Iraq, Session 2002–03, HC 813; but notes some reservations by Committee members that it not only had insufficient time but insufficient access to crucial documents to come to comprehensive and definitive conclusions on some of the issues; further notes the recent concerns raised over intelligence material; and calls on the Government to set up a judicial inquiry finally to establish the facts of the matter.
	I start by congratulating the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson), on its report. The Committee certainly had to work fast in the full glare of publicity, without the necessary access to intelligence papers and personnel, and it concluded, at paragraph 170 of its report, that the refusal by Ministers to allow such access hampered it in its work. Nevertheless, it has produced a useful report, while recognising that important questions remain unanswered. Indeed, it continues to ask some of those questions in the hope—I sometimes think that it is perhaps a vain hope—that it may still get answers to them. The Committee has not shied away from criticism. Indeed, the minutes of the proceedings show that the criticism would have been even sharper if certain amendments had been passed. It has done the House a service, for which I am sure that we are all grateful.
	On weapons of mass destruction, the Committee effectively concludes that, while the survey group carries out its work, the jury is still out, and we all need to have regard to that position. It calls for further information on the so-called 45-minutes claim and on Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Niger, and it famously concludes that, by referring to the dodgy dossier as "further intelligence", the Prime Minister misrepresented its status. I am pleased to see that the Committee also criticised Alastair Campbell's chairing of a meeting on an intelligence matter.

Angela Browning: A month ago, I wrote to the Prime Minister because of the answer that he gave me when I questioned him about the provenance of the dodgy document on the Floor of the House in February. Is my right hon. Friend surprised that, although the Foreign Secretary has apologised for the document, those of us who have questioned the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House have yet to see his own ministerial code implemented and to receive an appropriate apology, correcting the record?

Michael Ancram: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is not for want of our asking for an apology that the Prime Minister has failed to give one. It is yet another indication of the Prime Minister's arrogance and his contempt not only for the House, but for his own rules in relation to his Ministers that he has not seen fit to come to the House to apologise. The Committee did not and could not, however, give the Government, the Prime Minister or Mr. Alastair Campbell a totally clean bill of health, hence our motion today.
	We stand by our support for the action that was taken in Iraq. Like the Committee, we have no doubt, to quote paragraph 41 of the report, that
	"the threat posed to UK forces was perceived as a real and present danger".
	We believe that the development of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein and his refusal to comply with 18 UN Security Council resolutions justified action. That is why we supported the Government in the vote in the House on 18 March. Let me make it clear: we did not sustain the Government in office that night for fun or out of a sense of friendship. We did so because we believed that the threat to our national interest was real and that the Prime Minister was acting in the national interest.
	That, however, is not the main issue of today's debate, which is about the way that the Government handled information in the run-up to that vote. The existence of weapons of mass destruction was not the sole justification for action, but they were certainly a part of it. The Prime Minister conceded that before the Liaison Committee on 8 July when he said:
	"I accept entirely the legal basis for action was through weapons of mass destruction."
	That brings me to the central purpose of today's debate. The Foreign Secretary rightly stated yesterday that the ability of the House to vote for or against war was a constitutional change. Not only was it a change but it carries grave responsibilities, which none of us on the night of the vote took lightly. Decisions of life and death can and must be taken only on the best information available. In the case of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, much of that information was bound to be intelligence-based and intelligence-provided. The House has no direct access to such intelligence but only what it is told by Ministers. The House must therefore be able to have total confidence not only in the intelligence information vouchsafed to it by the Prime Minister and his colleagues but in knowing what is intelligence-sourced and what is not. If that confidence is lacking or has been breached, the House cannot be responsibly asked to take on such grave matters.
	The Prime Minister and the Government have an overriding duty to be scrupulous and consistent in the way that they provide intelligence material to Parliament. Over these last months, that has clearly not been the case. Two key areas exist, which are inevitably linked but nevertheless distinct: first, the status of the evidence on weapons of mass destruction, and secondly, the way in which the Government have handled and made public intelligence material. At the moment, the theme that links those more than anything else is that of confusion and inconsistency. In this area in which clarity is essential and consistency is vital, we have all found ourselves enmeshed in an increasingly tangled web that has been totally of the Government's weaving.

Douglas Hogg: Would my right hon. Friend consider this proposition: the Government's difficulty really stems from the fact that they decided to go to war to support the American alliance? They knew that that explanation would never be acceptable to Labour Members, and consequently they had to place on weapons of mass destruction a weight that it would not bear, as that was the only kind of argument that they could put to their hon. Friends.

Michael Ancram: I know that that is my right hon. and learned Friend's view, and as I said on an earlier occasion, I respect him for it. I cannot say that I agree. What I can say is that the Opposition supported the Government because we believed that it was in the national interest to do so and that the situation provided a threat, and a current threat, to our national interests.
	Let me start with the matter of weapons of mass destruction. I accepted, and I believe that I was justified in accepting, the Prime Minister's assertions that such weapons existed, not just before the war but since. On 28 April, he said in his monthly press conference that he remained confident that weapons of mass destruction "will be found". I also listened when, in St. Petersburg on 31 May, he reiterated his belief in the existence of weapons of mass destruction and told us that he was waiting to publish a complete picture, including material that was "not yet public" and evidence that he was going to assemble and "present properly". If I may say so, we are still waiting for that evidence.
	I took seriously the Secretary of State for Defence when, on 7 April, he told the House:
	"we will find weapons of mass destruction."—[Official Report, 7 April 2003; Vol. 403, c. 29.]
	On 13 April, on Radio 4, he said:
	"I'm absolutely convinced that they are there."
	The tune then began to change—subtly at first. The Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee that he had no doubt that
	"those weapons of mass destruction programmes existed".
	He said that he had
	"absolutely no doubt that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes, no doubt at all."
	There was no doubt either about the introduction of the word "programmes". The Prime Minister's official spokesman qualified the use of the word when he said:
	"we will find evidence not only of weapons of mass destruction programmes but concrete evidence of the product of those programmes as well".
	So, we have talk of programmes and their products, the result of which is increasing confusion.

Edward Leigh: I questioned the Prime Minister in the Liaison Committee and raised the subtle change of language. My right hon. Friend is on to an absolutely vital point. Surely the reason why we went to war was that Saddam Hussein posed a direct military threat to the region and the west. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the House is fully aware of that point and respond to a further specific point? Why did the Government simply stop talking about the 45-minute threat after September? They did not talk about it in March, so they must have known then that the information was no longer reliable.

Michael Ancram: If I may, I shall come on to the 45-minute claim a little later in my remarks. We must be cautious not to get caught up on that point because I think that that was the intention of Mr. Alastair Campbell. He raised it before the Foreign Affairs Committee because he hoped to divert attention from more serious matters.
	On my hon. Friend's first point, I say again that we need clarity on the Government's position on weapons of mass destruction because it has varied over the past few weeks. We need to know their clear position today. For example, on 9 July, the BBC political editor, Andrew Marr, said that senior sources
	"at the top of Whitehall"
	had told him that the Government now accepted that they would not find the weapons. I do not know who those senior sources were, but I would be interested to hear from the Foreign Secretary, who met Mr. Andrew Marr that afternoon, whether, by any chance, he agreed with those senior sources. I offer him the opportunity to respond now, although he might be keeping his head down.
	Immediately after that, the story began to change again. Downing street disowned the senior source only to be outdone by a senior Foreign Office adviser who was reported in The Herald on 11 July as saying:
	"We remain confident that weapons of mass destruction and products will be found and nobody at the Foreign Office takes the view that we no longer believe we will find them".
	The situation is completely circular. There are those who say that the weapons will not be found and those who say that they will be found. Some people make attributable comments and some make non-attributable comments. Once again, we have confusion. The only thing that remains clear about the Government's position on weapons of mass destruction is that it is totally confused. We need today an unambiguous statement from the Foreign Secretary on where the Government stand on weapons of mass destruction.
	That is only part of the tangled web in which the Government are foundering. The other part is how they have handled intelligence material. For example, there was a claim about uranium from Niger going to Iraq. The claim was stated as a fact in the September dossier but was subsequently shown to have been partially based on forged documents. There was no explanation of who forged them and why. There is no mention of CIA concerns in the Government's response. We now have a belated explanation that there were other sources of intelligence that apparently cannot be disclosed. Even more unusually, we are told that such sources cannot be shared with the United States. There are again more unanswered questions, and further confusion and suspicion.
	I have never thought that the 45-minutes claim was key. I believe that Alastair Campbell decided to make that the smokescreen behind which to conceal the Government's other shortcomings. He believed that war with the BBC was preferable to war with Labour Back Benchers. The smoke has blown back in his face. In the farcical charade of who non-attributably told whom what and when on the provenance of the 45-minute claim, the Government last week suddenly offered up their official, Dr. David Kelly. Yesterday, Dr. Kelly made it clear, contrary to what the Government had suggested, that he was not Mr. Andrew Gilligan's unnamed source, and I understand that the Foreign Affairs Committee has supported him. There has been more inaccurate spin and confusion.

Patrick McLoughlin: Has my right hon. Friend given any thought to why, when Mr. Andrew Gilligan first made his accusations on the media, which was some weeks before the Foreign Affairs Committee investigated the matter, 10 Downing street and Mr. Alastair Campbell did not complain immediately? Instead, Mr. Campbell seemed to wait until he appeared before the Committee. Surely that is another example of the way in which the Government set up smokescreens.

Michael Ancram: That is precisely why I thought that there was a smokescreen. There had been no earlier complaint about the report on the "Today" programme and no complaint was made about a report on "Newsnight", which was produced independently of the investigation that gave rise to the story on the "Today" programme. The Government have never complained about the "Newsnight" report although it made precisely the same allegations as Mr. Gilligan.

Eric Illsley: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that Downing street and Alastair Campbell refuted the story on the morning of 29 May? Downing street issued a denial within an hour of the broadcast of the report on the radio.

Michael Ancram: I am still puzzled about why Downing street did not issue a denial after the "Newsnight" report. The report contained exactly the same allegations, although they were made by a different journalist. I have been in politics for a long time and when I see a cloud of smoke going up, I reckon that I can tell whether it is a smokescreen or an explosion.
	The most damaging element of the whole affair relates to the so-called dodgy dossier that was published on 3 February 2003. As we know, it was largely composed of a relatively old PhD thesis that had been published on the internet and, to use the jargon, cut and pasted. That made it dodgy but not necessarily wrong. What was wrong was that the Prime Minister told Parliament that it was "further intelligence" when it was not. What was wrong was that the dossier was not a product of the intelligence services but of a committee chaired by Alastair Campbell. What was wrong was that it was taken for what it was not. The Foreign Affairs Committee rightly reported:
	"By producing such a document the Government undermined the credibility of their case for war".

David Cairns: The right hon. Gentleman cited the Prime Minister's statement about "further intelligence". However, does he accept, as the Foreign Affairs Committee makes clear, that the Prime Minister did not set out to mislead Parliament and that he acted inadvertently? The right hon. Gentleman goes on about how awful smokescreens are, but he slips in facts and tries to move away from them, thus creating smokescreens of his own. Will he accept that the Prime Minister's actions were not deliberate?

Michael Ancram: I shall address that point directly in a few moments because it is important.
	The Government's production of the document was not the only thing that undermined the credibility of their case for war. We now know that the Prime Minister, albeit inadvertently, misled Parliament, for which he has neither apologised nor explained himself. When challenged, he said that he did not know the document's full provenance. He said that he did not know that it was not an intelligence document when he spoke about it in the House. Apparently, the Foreign Secretary did not know that either because he said the other day that he did not know that the document was not an intelligence document for more than three days, although his Department is the sponsoring Ministry for MI6. So it is all right as long as one does not know.
	It is all right, perhaps, for those of us who have no reason to know, but the people who did not know are not ordinary people or Back Benchers—they are the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. Are we really to believe that they did not know? It beggars belief. They run the Government. They are supposed to be running the country. Why did they not know? Why were they not told by Alastair Campbell? In any event, what on earth was he doing chairing an intelligence assessment committee? The arch-manipulator of the truth was in charge of assessing the truth of intelligence. There is an irony in that. We can only assume that Mr. Campbell was operating on a need-to-know basis and that, in his view, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary did not need to know.

Julian Lewis: Is it not even more mysterious that in Prime Minister's questions last week, when the Prime Minister knew that the overwhelming part of the dossier was not intelligence based, he still asserted:
	"I am afraid that I do not accept that Parliament was misled in any way at all."—[Official Report, 9 July 2003; Vol. 408, c. 1151.]?
	He tried to embroil the Leader of the Opposition in his argument by asking him if any of the intelligence in that dossier was untrue. But that was not the misleading; the misleading lay in the presentation of a dossier to Parliament as if it were primarily intelligence-based when it was primarily not intelligence-based. So the Prime Minister, in denying that Parliament was misled previously, was actually misleading Parliament deliberately on that later occasion.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must withdraw that remark. "Deliberately" and "misleading" are not what I expect to hear from him.

Julian Lewis: At your request, Mr. Speaker, I, of course, withdraw the remark. I only wish I could think of another way of making the same point that would be acceptable to you.

Michael Ancram: My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have listened to the Prime Minister and I think that he believes that an inadvertent misrepresentation of status to the House of Commons is not misleading. I am not accusing him of deliberately misleading, but if one says something that is wrong and people believe it, one has misled. I am prepared to accept, as I said, that he did not know that he was misleading. My charge against him is why on earth did he not know? If he were doing his job properly, he would have known. If this were fiction, our review of the book would be that it was unbelievable.
	Some will ask whether the dodgy dossier really matters. The fact that the Prime Minister misrepresented its provenance goes to the heart of the trust that Parliament can put in what he tells it is, or is not, intelligence. His failure to acknowledge that leaves an enormous question mark hanging over anything that he in future tells the House is, or is not, intelligence. He has squandered his trustworthiness and is doing little to retrieve it.
	The erosion of public confidence is gathering pace and beginning to damage the national interest. Opposition Members do not believe that the issue should be allowed to drift on into the autumn. If Labour Members think that the coming recess is a beach to a drowning man, they will find when they get there that the beach is a mirage.
	There is an urgent unanswerable case for the Government to set up an independent judicial inquiry into what is now a matter of urgent public importance. It could be asked to report within six months, require the attendance of witnesses who could be examined on oath and compel the production of documents. It could get to the bottom of this murky pool, establish the truth and re-establish public confidence.

Donald Anderson: The right hon. Gentleman says that the matter should not be allowed to drag on into the autumn. I remind him that the Scott inquiry took 18 months. I can imagine the shouts of horror if an artificial timetable of six months were imposed on a judge, who would say that he could not complete it within that time.

Michael Ancram: If the Government acknowledge the public concern and set up a judicial inquiry to reassure them, they could bring the discussion to an end. It may be against my party political interests to do that, but at least it would be in the national interest.

Patrick Cormack: Does my right hon. Friend think that any such inquiry would seriously undermine what the Prime Minister told the House on 18 March?

Michael Ancram: I hope that it would not. We backed the Prime Minister on 18 March because we believed that he was acting in the national interest. We need to get to the truth of the matter, rather than the half-statements and half-truths that we have heard so often in response to recent allegations. By doing that, we will restore confidence in the Prime Minister's ability to talk about intelligence matters to the House of Commons and restore confidence in intelligence itself. Both of those have been damaged by what has gone on.

Patrick McLoughlin: If the Government complain about six months for an inquiry, may I remind my right hon. Friend of what Mr. Michael Foot said about setting up an inquiry? He stated:
	"If there is any difference in emphasis between me and the right hon. Lady about the way in which"
	the matter should be presented to the House
	"it is on timing. I do not believe that the inquiry need take six months. I believe that"
	it could complete its work
	"considerably more speedily".—[Official Report, 8 July 1982; Vol. 27, c. 477.]
	That inquiry also had two former Labour Cabinet Ministers on it.

Michael Ancram: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information. I was not aware of it and he makes a useful point.
	The real problem is that the matter is a mess. It is a mess of the Government's own making. Through incomplete information, unattributable briefings, half-truths and pathetic smokescreens, they have brought about a failure of confidence, a collapse of trust in the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Government, and a serious undermining of public confidence in British intelligence.
	I will not lose sleep over the loss of trust in the Prime Minister and his Government. In my book, that was never high, but failure of confidence in intelligence is serious. Lack of trust when the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary bring intelligence material to the House is serious, too. The situation cannot be allowed to drift. An independent judicial inquiry should be set up now. That would be the right thing for the Government to do. It is the responsible thing for the Government to do. It is in the public interest. I commend the motion to the House.

Jack Straw: I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	"welcomes the Ninth Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the Decision to go to War in Iraq, Session 2002–03, HC 813; notes that substantial oral and written evidence, by and on behalf of the Government, was provided to the Committee; believes that the Intelligence and Security Committee, established by Parliament by statute, is the appropriate body to consider the intelligence relating to Iraq; and notes that this Committee has already begun its inquiry."
	The Opposition's motion raises two central questions: whether an independent judicial inquiry in respect of intelligence relating to Iraq would be the most appropriate form of inquiry; or whether the membership, powers and practices of the Intelligence and Security Committee are sufficient to give this House and the general public an objective and informed picture of the role of intelligence in the run-up to military action.
	The demand for a judicial inquiry stems from accusations that the Government may have misrepresented or exaggerated intelligence. I think that that was the point that the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) made, although it was not always clear. Let me reiterate that the Government stand by the judgments reached in the dossier published on 24 September and, in respect of the accuracy, of the contents of the briefing paper that we issued on 3 February this year.
	We welcomed the Foreign Affairs Committee's decision on 3 June to conduct the inquiry. I note that the Opposition also welcome it in the motion, but another element of the motion is frankly disingenuous—namely, the implication that the Foreign Affairs Committee had to pursue its investigation within time constraints dictated by the Government. It is not the place of any Government to seek to influence the time scale of any Select Committee inquiry, nor did we do so. The deadline of 7 July for the publication of the Committee's report was determined by the Committee alone. Moreover, as everyone knows, it continues to take evidence and has sought further material from me in the past two days. As the Committee records, it took evidence from a number of sources. I spent more than five hours before the Committee, including a private session where I disclosed sensitive details relating to the Government's intelligence on Iraq. On each occasion, senior officials from my Department joined me, including the permanent secretary, Sir Michael Jay, and the political director, Peter Ricketts. My office sent the Committee substantial written evidence, including, on 19 June, a comprehensive memorandum setting out the main political and diplomatic developments in the months preceding military action.
	We will of course respond in writing to the FAC's report and recommendations within the standard two-month period, as well as meeting much earlier deadlines set by the FAC for further and better information. However, I hope that some of the FAC's conclusions will lend perspective to today's debate. Although Committee members split 6–4 on the last part of recommendation 14, repeated in paragraph 86, that
	"allegations of politically inspired meddling cannot credibly be established",
	they were unanimous in their central conclusions that although they had concerns about the emphasis given to some of the intelligence, the claims made in the September dossier
	"were in all probability well founded on the basis of the intelligence then available".

Edward Garnier: It is not quite clear to me whether the Foreign Secretary accepts that the Foreign Affairs Committee had insufficient access to crucial documents to come to comprehensive and definitive conclusions. Will the Foreign Secretary answer that?

Jack Straw: I have said on the record that in our judgment the FAC is not the appropriate body to see all the intelligence. That job, the House and Parliament have decided, is for the Intelligence and Security Committee. That is a matter of fact, and I do not want get involved in another matter of fact—the gentle tussle between the FAC and the ISC. However, I would tell the hon. and learned Gentleman—I am happy to be corrected, but I think that this is true—that I have gone further in seeking to provide evidence directly from intelligence than most Ministers have gone in the past. I shall continue to do so, and I regard it as my duty to be responsible to the House and its Select Committees—as I am—as well as to the Intelligence and Security Committee.
	I shall now deal with the key issue of a judicial inquiry raised by the right hon. Member for Devizes. The original motion tabled in the middle of June by the Leader of the Opposition called for a judicial inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. An inquiry under the 1921 Act is established to investigate a
	"definite matter . . . of urgent importance."
	Given the wide judicial powers of any such inquiry, a key feature is the protection afforded to witnesses, now in accordance with the so-called Salmon procedures. Those procedures, introduced to
	"minimise the risk of injustice to individuals",
	mean that all persons called before an inquiry held under the 1921 Act are entitled to legal protection. Of course that is admirable, but it means that inquiries can be frustrating for the public because of the duration and the costs involved. The Salmon procedures are not confined to inquiries formally established under the 1921 Act, and apply to any other judicial inquiry. The Scott inquiry was not formally a 1921 Act inquiry—one of the demands by my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), with the full support of the Opposition, was that it should be a 1921 Act inquiry—but even though it was not, in practice, as the report makes clear, it had to take full account of the rules of evidence, provide for legal representation and follow the Salmon procedures.
	The motion tabled by the Leader of the Opposition in June called for an inquiry to be completed in six months. The right hon. Member for Devizes referred to that today, but I have to tell the House and him—and he should know this—that if a senior member of the judiciary is asked to conduct an independent inquiry, he will exercise independence on timing as much as on content. If he is not allowed sufficient time, justice cannot be done or be seen to be done. I should like to correct a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson), who underestimated the time taken by the Scott inquiry. That inquiry was established in 16 November 1992 and did not report until February 1996. A similar time scale would take any inquiry in this Parliament beyond the final date for a general election, and that is in no one's interest.
	Moreover, it is quite wrong to assume that independent judicial inquiries, whether established under the 1921 Act or not, automatically bring the issues to a close. Sometimes they do not, and I ask the House to take full note of that. In 1972, an independent judicial inquiry into Bloody Sunday was set up under the 1921 Act by the then Prime Minister Edward Heath, under a most distinguished senior member of the judiciary at the time, Lord Chief Justice Widgery. However, his report did not close the issue to the satisfaction of all the parties. There was continuing criticism of his independence and judiciousness, notwithstanding his distinguished reputation, which led many years later to the establishment of the latest independent judicial inquiry into Bloody Sunday, the length of which has far exceeded the length of the Scott inquiry. It is now in its fifth year and has cost £100 million.

Patrick Cormack: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that setting up that inquiry was as profound a mistake as the setting up of any inquiry into the decision to go to war in Iraq would be?

Jack Straw: My lips are sealed on the setting up of the first one. However, as I said, it is now in its fifth year, and some people who were evangelical in their support for it may now be questioning its utility.

Patrick McLoughlin: If the Foreign Secretary is to have credibility, can he explain to the House why, when the Government were first elected, they were so keen to set up not just the Bloody Sunday inquiry but a number of inquiries into the actions of the previous Government, whereas they are now reluctant to have any inquiries into their own actions?

Jack Straw: I was just about to come to that, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point.
	I set up a judicial inquiry, chaired by Sir William Macpherson, into the events surrounding the death of Stephen Lawrence. I hoped—and this was the family's wish—that the previous Government would set up such an inquiry, and we urged them to do so for five years. There was no reason for them not to do so, as plainly they were not to blame for what happened in Eltham that terrible April day. However, they failed to do so. When I made my decision, I was rightly supported by the then shadow Home Secretary and the House as a whole. I am grateful to the hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) for prompting me, because if he looks at the 24 1921 Act inquiries carried out over the past 82 years, he will see that almost all of them have involved serious allegations of misconduct flowing from, or leading to, criminal investigations. Before it comes to conclusions about the utility of the Opposition's motion, the House needs to weigh up the fact that those inquiries have on average taken two years to publish their findings.

Martin Smyth: May I chide the Foreign Secretary a little for referring to evangelical requests? There may have been evangelistic pressure, but if it was evangelical it would be seeking truth. Instead, it was actually yielding to the terrorists who wanted to get at the British Army and security services in Northern Ireland.

Jack Straw: I stand corrected by the hon. Gentleman about the difference between two words with a similar root.

Paul Flynn: Before the Foreign Secretary gets bogged down in the details of the inquiry, can he address the central objection to relying on two internal parliamentary Committees, whatever their merits? That objection concerns their independence. Every member of those two Committees took part in the vote on going to war—a new experience for us. They cannot therefore be judged to be independent when they are asked to make a judgment on their own decisions. That is the main reason why the country will not be satisfied—there must be a group of people outside the House who are free of accusations about making that original decision.

Jack Straw: That is an ingenious argument, using something that was welcomed across the House—the introduction of substantive motions for the decision to go to war—against the position that I am recommending to the House. The answer is clear. If that is the case, every single Select Committee will be disabled in every single inquiry that it ever undertakes. Moreover, my hon. Friend may not know members of the judiciary as well as some of us do. To my certain knowledge, the idea that a wide range of members of the judiciary did not have clear opinions about the decision to go to war is nonsense. I spoke to many of them in the run-up to the war. It was a matter of great controversy and interest. Some were in favour, others were against; none was indifferent.
	The usual argument about the control and scrutiny of the intelligence and security services has been that there ought to be stronger parliamentary scrutiny of them through the establishment of a Select Committee, rather than by the ISC. My hon. Friend seems to be arguing that we should not have confidence in our own ability to scrutinise the work of Ministers. Finally, if my hon. Friend looks at those who sit on the ISC—I shall deal with the ISC in more detail in a moment—he will see that the distinguished members of that body cover a fairly wide range of opinion on military action. I am clear that they are capable, as their record shows, of reaching decisions that are independent and judicious.

Richard Ottaway: rose—

Jeremy Corbyn: rose—

Jack Straw: I must make progress. I apologise.
	That brings me to my second question: whether the membership, powers and practice of the Intelligence and Security Committee are sufficient to give the House and the general public an objective and informed picture of the role of intelligence in the run-up to military action. My answer is yes. The ISC was established by the Intelligence Services Act 1994 after years of concern that Parliament was not able to play a proper role in holding to account the intelligence and security agencies or the Ministers responsible for them. One of the concerns that I recall was that where there were serious questions about the agencies and the use of intelligence, Government had to resort to establishing one-off inquiries—as they had to with Franks inquiry on the Falklands, and to a degree, although there were also allegations of criminality, in respect of the Scott inquiry on arms to Iraq—because there was no standing machinery to do this, as there is in countries such as the United States and in other parliamentary democracies.
	The debate in 1994 shows that although there was some questioning about the composition and powers of the ISC, the whole House welcomed its establishment. There was no vote against it. Over the years, the ISC has shown that any initial concerns about it have been unfounded. With members drawn from both Houses and all main parties, the ISC has performed its function with distinction. Its reports on the Mitrokhin archive and the terrorist atrocity in Bali are models of their kind, and proof that the ISC is perfectly capable of independence of judgment. Its reports have included important recommendations that have helped the agencies and their supervising Ministers and Departments to improve their performance, and they have included strong criticisms of the Government. If the ISC finds fault with our performance during their current investigation, I expect to hear such criticism again.

John Maples: The Foreign Secretary again uses the existence of the Intelligence and Security Committee, as he did in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee, as an excuse for not giving us access to documents and officials. Does he acknowledge that, when the ISC was set up, the then Foreign Secretary said that the existence of the Committee would not
	"truncate in any way the existing responsibilities of existing committees"?
	The right hon. Gentleman is now praying it in aid to do exactly that.

Jack Straw: No—and nor has the ISC truncated those responsibilities. The point about the ISC was that it filled a vacuum. There was no Committee for Parliament to supervise the intelligence and security agencies. The hon. Gentleman knows that, although there is some overlap between the work of the agencies or their product and the role of the FAC, the FAC's role is in respect of my responsibilities for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, not in respect of my responsibilities for the intelligence and security agencies. Parliament could have chosen to decide otherwise. As the Committee acknowledges, I am open to the argument that there should be a special Select Committee, but the current arrangements are those that Parliament decided.

Donald Anderson: Surely the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) is correct. The Government are cutting across the work of an existing Select Committee by their decision. I refer my right hon. Friend to paragraph 169 of the report, in which the Committee states:
	"We recommend that the Government accept the principle that it should be prepared to accede to requests from the Foreign Affairs Committee for access to intelligence, when the Committee can demonstrate that it is of key importance to a specific inquiry it is conducting and unless there are genuine concerns for national security."
	Precisely so. It was a specific inquiry. The Government hampered our inquiry by not allowing us full access to the relevant intelligence.

Jack Straw: My right hon. Friend will acknowledge that I provided a considerable degree of relevant intelligence. Moreover—this is a matter for the House, not for me—my right hon. Friend must acknowledge that there is an issue here of the boundaries of responsibilities of the FAC and the ISC. I am glad to see the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) acknowledge that. It is true. It is wrong for my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East and others to seek to embroil me or Ministers in what is essentially an issue for Parliament.
	The crucial thing is that we are fully accountable in respect of foreign policy and the work of the agencies to those two bodies established by Parliament, one a Select Committee, the other established by statute. Furthermore, as I suggested to my right hon. Friend when I gave evidence, and as I believe is happening, there is a good case for the two Committees to work in co-operation—for example, as I know from my visit to the ISC yesterday, the FAC provided the ISC with the full transcript of the evidence that I gave in private to the FAC so that I could be further interrogated by that body.
	The House may be wondering why no member of the ISC is present for this debate. The answer is that members of that Committee are in the middle of their inquiry, which they initiated on 8 May. The Prime Minister and I gave evidence to the Committee yesterday. Other Ministers and senior officials will also be cross-examined.
	The Conservatives established the ISC, and when it has suited the right hon. Member for Devizes, he has been fulsome in his praise for the Committee and its work, as he was in the case of Bali and as he was just two weeks ago in the debate on the ISC's annual report on 3 July. So I find it astonishing that there is no mention of the work of that Committee, which was set up by the Government of which I think he was a member in 1994. Still less did he mention the ISC at any stage in his speech. That is astonishing, and the approach is insulting to all members of the Committee, including distinguished members from his own party—the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates) and the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot). It is insulting, too, to Lord King, who chaired that Committee with distinction for many years and who was one of those who were able to build up its reputation and methods of operation.

Patrick McLoughlin: rose—

Jack Straw: I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
	Having given evidence before the ISC as both Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary over the past six years, I can personally testify to the integrity and rigour that former and current members of the Committee bring to their work. I have no doubt that they will pursue their investigation into the use of intelligence in respect of Iraq with the same degree of probity and concern for the public interest as they displayed during the Bali inquiry. We can expect them to deliver their conclusions swiftly, and the public can be sure that they will have arrived at their judgments on the basis of key intelligence material.

Richard Ottaway: Does the Foreign Secretary think the Committee will look into the question of supplies of uranium from Africa? I tabled a question last week asking whether Iraq had sought the supply of uranium from Africa that had no civil nuclear application in Iraq. The right hon. Gentleman will recognise those words as being exactly the words in the September dossier. Judging by what the Prime Minister said at Question Time today, one would have thought that the answer would be yes, but instead, the Minister for Europe replied with some waffle about the civil nuclear programme being frozen and there being no civil application for the uranium sought. Why can we not have straight answers to such questions? The question was perfectly clear. It is obfuscation like that that requires committees to be set up to give the straight answers that we are after.

Jack Straw: It was a straight answer. Moreover, the hon. Gentleman knows very well that I sent the Foreign Affairs Committee a two-page letter last Friday with further detail that was put on record on Friday evening, after he and his colleagues on the Committee had received it.

Stephen O'Brien: rose—

Julian Lewis: rose—

Jack Straw: I am sorry, but I am going to make progress.
	The right hon. Member for Devizes spoke about this matter drifting on into the autumn. He wants a judicial inquiry, but if such an inquiry were established, it would not drift into the autumn, but be kicked into the long grass for the next couple of years. The right hon. Gentleman needs to be aware of that, as there is no way that a judicial inquiry could take six months and do a proper job.
	The hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) raised in an intervention on the right hon. Member for Devizes an issue that has also been raised in the press—the question whether a Franks-type inquiry should be held, as in respect of the Falklands. There have been some suggestions in the press that the Franks inquiry was a judicial inquiry, but it was not. Lord Franks was a distinguished public servant, but never a judge. He had been a diplomat, a United Kingdom ambassador in the US and permanent secretary to the Ministry of Supply at the end of the war. He was a distinguished business man, head of an Oxford college and a member of the House of Lords. A judge, however, he was not.
	Three other members of the Franks committee—I make this point since we have heard Franks prayed in aid outside the House as the answer—were Members of the House of Lords. I shall read out their names so that people can weigh the degree of judiciousness and independence that they brought to the job—as, of course, they did. Lord Barber was a former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer; Lord Watkinson was a former Conservative transport Minister; and Lord Harold Lever, an entertaining friend of ours on the Labour Benches, was a former Paymaster General and Minister without Portfolio. The committee included one Member of this House, Merlyn Rees, the former Home Secretary, and Sir Patrick Nairn, a good man and a former permanent secretary of the Department of Health and Social Security, who had before his translation to that post spent the whole of his career in the Ministry of Defence. They were distinguished people, but no one can seriously claim that such a group was any more qualified or distinguished than the current ISC. I was in this House when the Franks committee was established.

Tam Dalyell: I think that I am the only Member of the House of Commons to have been summoned by the Franks committee to give evidence. Frankly, however distinguished its members were, they were all round the shop in their questioning. Their questioning was absolutely loose, and I was not the only witness or judge who thought so. Franks was tired and too old to do the job, and it was a disaster.

Jack Straw: And that is what the Opposition want.

Patrick Cormack: What the distinguished Father of the House really means is that the Franks inquiry did not agree with him.

Jack Straw: My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) was in good company at the time. Indeed, I have been reading the statements that were made in this House when Franks reported. My hon. Friend made an important point. If we are going to find a judge to do such work—I had to recognise that this was the case when I established entirely justified judicial inquiries into judicial matters—on the whole, we have to go for judges who are retired, as others will not be available for the indefinite period for which they will operate. Sometimes, they could be described as old and tired.
	Frankly, when we are dealing with subjects that are so intrinsically political, the idea that simply because somebody has been adorned with a judge's wig, they will be devoid of political judgment or opinion, or that that will not seep through into what they say, is nonsense.

Patrick McLoughlin: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

Jack Straw: I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman and I need to make progress.
	Let us be clear: if there had been an ISC, there would have been no need for Franks. Neither the nature of the committee's membership nor its modus operandii removed it from controversy. As well as the criticism laid at its door by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow, I remember, as I was in the House—I double-checked my memory earlier today—a wonderful put-down by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), who said that Franks was
	"an establishment cover-up and a whitewash".—[Official Report, 18 January 1983; Vol. 35, c. 180.]
	Such inquiries often do not lay such intense political issues to rest, but merely keep them as running sores.

George Foulkes: Has the Foreign Secretary not even been tempted to set up an independent judicial inquiry? Such an inquiry has its attractions. I think that it would be convenient to him, as he could say to the Liberals, the Tories and even to some Labour Members, "I am not going to deal with these details, as they are being dealt with by a judicial inquiry." If such an inquiry were established, we would not have these debates and questions, and as he said, the report would not be published until after the general election. Surely, there is some temptation, as it is far more difficult for him to be constantly questioned and challenged by this House and by two Committees.

Jack Straw: I am afraid that my right hon. Friend is possessed of even more guile than me. Of course, there is an important truth in what he says. The Opposition tabled a motion calling for a judicial inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 in the middle of June, and when the ISC arose in the debate about Iraq two weeks ago, the right hon. Member for Devizes did not mention the idea of a judicial inquiry. However, he now thinks that, if he avoids the name of the 1921 Act, he can avoid all the complications that go with it. That shows what a shambles and how useless the Opposition are.

Michael Ancram: We were talking earlier about smokescreens, but the Foreign Secretary has now been speaking for half an hour and he has yet to get on to the merits of what the Select Committee looked at or indeed the allegations that I made. He has so far talked about nothing except the very last part of the motion. Unless he is going to speak for a very long time, he may be trying to avoid dealing with the issues that are of interest to the public. May I ask him one question: does he agree with Andrew Marr's senior sources at the top of Whitehall who said that the Government now accepted that they would not find weapons of mass destruction, or with The Herald's senior Foreign Office adviser, who said:
	"We remain confident that weapons of mass destruction and products will be found"?
	If he answers only that question, we may at least make a little progress.

Jack Straw: That also shows just how useless this Opposition are. Yesterday we had questions lasting an hour and a quarter in which I was interrogated and during which he could have asked me those questions. I do not know whether he has noticed it, but the reason why I am concentrating on whether there should be a judicial inquiry is that that is in the terms of the motion. It is my experience that, if one strays beyond the terms of the motion, one can be pulled up. The right hon. Gentleman is not asking me to pre-judge these issues, as I have already made our assertions and made clear our confidence about the judgments in the 24 September dossier and the contents of the document published on 3 February. He is seeking to avoid any involvement by the House in these judgments and to ensure that they are made instead by some independent judicial body.
	At the heart of the argument is the question whether we should kick this matter into the long grass for two, three or four years, at a cost of some £20 million or £30 million, or allow Members of this House to hold the inquiry. That is the central issue before us today. I know that some Members of the House challenge the method of appointment and reporting of the ISC. That does not lie well in the mouth of the Opposition or the right hon. Member for Devizes; the Intelligence Services Act 1994 was their Act. To make such claims because the ISC is appointed by the Prime Minister and reports to the House through him is outrageously to traduce the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman should be ashamed of himself for not being able even to utter the words "Intelligence and Security Committee" when it was he and his Government who established it. It is representative and its members are not toadies.
	The House knows that, because the ISC must have access to sensitive intelligence, there has to be a filter to ensure that the published contents of the report do not compromise national security. However, the 1994 Act spells out that any redactions have to be made clear; and there is no question of the Prime Minister or any Minister interfering with any of the Committee's conclusions, and neither would the Committee keep quiet if there were any attempt to do so.
	Let me come to my last point on a judicial inquiry. Who would appoint that judicial inquiry? I have some news for the right hon. Member for Devizes. If it were outside the 1921 Act, I am sorry to have to tell him that I would have to make the appointments. If it were under the Act, by law the appointments would have to be made by the Prime Minister. The right hon. Gentleman should think about that.
	The dossiers of September and February set out the case for dealing with Iraq rather than ignoring Iraq, not the case for military action. In September and in February, all our efforts were devoted to finding a peaceful solution through the UN. When, in the end, we were faced on 18 March with a decision to take military action against Iraq, that decision was based—in the words of the motion that this House endorsed by a majority of 263 votes—on the need to
	"uphold the authority of the United Nations as set out in Resolution 1441 and many Resolutions preceding it".
	Let me repeat what is in the FAC report. The Committee agreed unanimously that the decision to take military action was based not on the Government's intelligence assessments, but on the need—I quote from paragraph 3 of its report—
	"to enforce unanimous Resolutions of the UN Security Council".
	For all the efforts to rewrite history, I remind the right hon. Member for Devizes that intelligence was not the issue for the Opposition. In the crucial debate of 18 March, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said that the main issue was Iraqi defiance of the UN. He said that
	"Saddam Hussein has lied to the UN for 12 years"
	and that
	"it should be evident to everyone that he remains in breach of the obligations under 1441."
	He then listed the agents and viruses that had been identified, not by us but by Hans Blix in his report of 6 March, and recommended that
	"every Member of this House read"—
	that 173-page report—
	"before passing judgment."
	He added:
	"There is a huge and powerful argument to act."
	Indeed, he went on to say that
	"if decisive action had been taken earlier, we would not now stand on the verge of war".
	The Leader of the Opposition therefore concluded:
	"There are matters at stake that rise above party politics. It is the duty of the Government to act in the national interest, and it is the duty of the Opposition to support them when they do so. The Prime Minister is acting in the national interest today. That is why he is entitled to our support in doing the right thing."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 775–79.]

Julian Lewis: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

Jack Straw: No, I am about to close.
	The Liberal Democrats' argument for a judicial inquiry is even more bizarre. They disagreed with the decision to take military action even on the basis of the intelligence that was made available. For them, intelligence was not an issue.
	The decision to take military action is as justified today as it was on 18 March. Nothing in the report that the Foreign Affairs Committee published on 7 July challenges the facts on which the House's judgment was based. The Leader of the Opposition spoke for the majority of the House when he said:
	"If we vote to give Saddam yet another chance, the moment will pass, our concentration will falter, our energy and our focus will disperse and our nerve will fail, with disastrous consequences for us all."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 779.]
	As for the Opposition's motion, what they describe as the "facts of the matter" now form the very heart of and backdrop to the investigations of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which was set up by Parliament. I know that the ISC will be rigorous with its witnesses, scrupulous with the intelligence material and, if necessary, unsparing in its criticism. I know, too, that—unlike a judicial inquiry—it will be able to deliver its conclusions in a timely manner, not months or years down the line when public interest has waned. A vote for the Opposition's motion would be a vote of no confidence in the Intelligence and Security Committee—[Interruption.] Conservative Members did not mention it once: they could not utter the words. It would also be a vote of no confidence in the ability of this Parliament to have effective oversight of agencies and Ministers on intelligence matters. I urge the House to reject the motion and to accept our amendment.

Menzies Campbell: As the right hon. Gentleman came to the end of his speech, I thought that I had strayed into Blackburn on a Saturday morning and he was on his well-known soap box.
	As the Foreign Secretary rightly said, the whole House is grateful to the Foreign Affairs Committee for its report. I do not doubt for a moment that the Committee has done its best in the time available and with the information that was made available to it, but I hope that its Chairman will not think it churlish of me to say that in this context, its best is not enough. Indeed, the Committee itself implies in paragraph 29 of its recommendations, on page 5, that because it had to operate within the envelope of restriction imposed by the Government, it did not see everything or everyone.
	The Foreign Secretary set great store by the Intelligence and Security Committee. No hon. Member would argue that the independence of that Committee was in doubt, nor could we argue about the fact that its access to documents and to individuals may be rather wider than that afforded to the Foreign Affairs Committee. But we cannot ignore the fact that the final contents of any report produced by that Committee may well depend upon the judgment of No. 10 Downing street as to what information about what occurred in No. 10, which has inevitably been a source of controversy, should be allowed to reach the public domain. That is why I do not shrink from saying that we need an inquiry—

Jack Straw: rose—

Menzies Campbell: I shall give way in a moment.
	We need an inquiry that is independent of the House and of any role for the Prime Minister or any other Minister. We need an inquiry that will satisfy public opinion, which was reflected very unusually to the extent that here in London more than 1 million people took to the streets to express their anxiety, which was mirrored up and down the country on the same day.

Jack Straw: I hope that on reflection, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not pursue the point that there can be, or has been, any censorship of the reports and conclusions of the ISC. The Intelligence Services Act 1994 is very specific. Section 10(5), (6) and (7) make it clear that where any issues are redacted—as they sometimes have to be from FAC reports too—that has to be made patent in the report. There is no question of any of its conclusions ever being interfered with. I pray in aid the remarks of Lord King, formerly Tom King, whom we all knew, and who was Chairman of the ISC before my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor). He said:
	"The reports cannot be censored."

Menzies Campbell: I accept all that. The Foreign Secretary will remember, however, that we had a debate on the annual report of the Intelligence and Security Committee only a fortnight or so ago, when the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and I were at pains to point out that substantial parts of that report were subject to asterisks. The hon. Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates) described as an improvement the inclusion of a table that in previous years the Committee had been persuaded should not be inserted, but when I pointed out that the table was not particularly illuminating because large parts of its columns comprised asterisks, he had to agree.
	What took place in No. 10 Downing street is undoubtedly a matter of controversy. The ISC is a different kind of Committee from a Select Committee of the House of Commons. It is not, in the sense in which the public would understand it, a Committee that is independent of the House of Commons. To those who argue that the House of Commons should never give up its jurisdiction over such matters, and that Committees of the House are the only competent means of investigation, I would say that they do not understand the extent to which we are disregarded by the public. This is an issue of enormous public importance that requires an inquiry of a different kind. Such an inquiry would go much further towards restoring confidence in this institution and the way in which it operates than an investigation confined to instruments of the House of Commons.

Patrick Cormack: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman seriously believe that a judicial inquiry would publish sensitive national security information for everybody to read? Surely he is not suggesting that it would behave any differently from the Intelligence and Security Committee in that regard?

Menzies Campbell: Of course I do not suggest that—but introducing independent scrutiny from outside the system is much more likely to command public support than proceeding with our current method. As the Foreign Secretary said, the Intelligence and Security Committee is well able to conduct the annual scrutiny and monitoring of the activities of the three security services. However, going to war is not normal; having a million people on the streets is not normal. It is not normal to go to war when, shortly after the momentous decision—as the Foreign Secretary rightly describes it—substantial and controversial issues arise about the basis for doing so. We therefore need a solution in the form of an inquiry that does not follow the normal course.
	Why should there be an inquiry? We have to be careful and not allow ourselves to be blown off course by the tempest that rages between Mr. Campbell and the BBC. When the vote was taken on 18 March, the Government's case was that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction constituted a clear and present danger and that military force was the only way in which to protect our interests. The clear implication of that position, notwithstanding the comments of Dr. Blix on the extent of the limited co-operation that he continued to receive from the Iraqi regime, was that all other political and diplomatic options had been exhausted.
	The Government, and, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition, now place great reliance on the passage that the Foreign Secretary read out earlier about the fact that some 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions had been breached, and especially that resolution 1441 authorised force. Many PhDs will be written about whether resolution 1441 authorised force, and whether the precise language in which it was couched was designed more to achieve unanimity than clarity when it passed through the Security Council.
	However, there is no doubt that although clear and obvious breaches of resolutions may authorise military action, they would not make it legitimate under the normal rules of international law unless it could be demonstrated that all other diplomatic and political options had failed. Let us consider the Government's case at its best. Resolution 1441 did not absolve them of their obligation to explore alternatives or to use only force proportionate to the resolution's objectives. If, as the Prime Minister said on 25 or 26 March, after the debate on 18 March, the object was disarmament not regime change, any force that had the converse as its purpose was disproportionate. If it was disproportionate, it was illegitimate and contrary to international law.
	I make that analysis to point out that the centrality of the Government's case was that weapons of mass destruction that posed a clear and present danger existed, and that, although the words "immediate" and "imminent" were not used, it was essential for the protection of our interests—political and otherwise—and those of the region, to use military force at the time.

Donald Anderson: We are hearing a skilful analysis by a persuasive advocate. However, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has not mentioned the unanimous acceptance by all members of the Security Council, in resolution 1441 of 8 November, of the threat that Saddam Hussein's regime posed. In the preamble to the resolution, all members recognised
	"the threat Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security".

Menzies Campbell: That recognises the threat, but there is dispute about whether the remainder of the terms of the resolution authorise military action. Indeed, as the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) pointed out in his resignation speech, the Government went to great lengths to obtain a second resolution but subsequently claimed that the importance of securing it was not especially great. However, their efforts to obtain a second resolution suggested that it was important.
	The right hon. Member for Devizes cited a passage from resolution 1441, but we must be careful about making an assumption that the United Nations Security Council is the only fount of international law, which somehow did not exist until the charter of the United Nations appeared in San Francisco in 1947. The rules of conflict have existed for a long time; they preceded the United Nations. Proportionality, and using military force as a last resort, have been part of the code of international law for a long time. They were not undermined, and could not be swept aside, by the Security Council's passing resolution 1441. In the view of at least 13 members, it was ambiguous, certainly on whether it specifically authorised military force.
	The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie), who recently retired from the Ministry of Defence, let the cat out of the bag yesterday or the previous day when he said:
	"What we are talking about here is trying to put the best gloss on your case to ensure people accept it."
	Members of Parliament do that all the time; barristers and advocates are well paid for doing it. However, the legality of war, with the political, economic and social consequences, is much too important a topic on which to put a gloss to ensure that people accept it.
	The question that remains is not whether Mr. Campbell had too much to do with intelligence matters in No. 10, but whether the United Kingdom went to war on a flawed prospectus. Was that flaw in the intelligence or the way in which it was handled once it reached the Government? The Prime Minister and other Ministers have been skilful at denying guilt of a charge that was not made against them. It is said that those who raise such issues are somehow accusing the Prime Minister of lying. I am not doing that. However, there may be issues not of truth but of judgment and competence. I therefore believe that an inquiry is necessary. What if similar circumstances arise in the course of this Parliament? What if a further perceived threat arises? Where will the Government find the credibility to persuade the House and the country that military action is required?

Tam Dalyell: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is a Queen's Counsel and has a good record in such matters. I ask him a genuine question: what form should the inquiry take?

Menzies Campbell: I agreed with the Foreign Secretary in some of his criticisms about the form of inquiry that would be appropriate, and I shall deal with that subject shortly.
	I caution the Government, and the House, about campaigns against the BBC. I suspect that a shoot-out between the BBC and politicians about which is the more reliable is unlikely to be resolved in our favour.
	Dr. Kelly has fallen on his sword but his emergence, blinking into the sunlight, like the chorus of prisoners in "Fidelio", underlines the fact that he did not believe in the 45-minutes claim—members of the Foreign Affairs Committee who heard him yesterday will doubtless correct me if I am wrong about that. He made it clear, and the Committee accepted it, that whatever sort of contact he constituted for Mr. Gilligan, he was not his source for the broadcast on 29 May. I had the impression—perhaps a rather naive and superficial impression—that the reason why Dr. Kelly was put up by the Ministry of Defence was to undermine Mr. Gilligan. The Committee is seeing Mr. Gilligan later this week. If we are to make a judgment about Dr. Kelly's intervention in these matters so far, he seems, if anything, to have buttressed and supported the Gilligan view, rather than undermined it.
	These questions certainly will not go away. That is why I believe that the case for an independent inquiry is irresistible—a point that I made to the Foreign Secretary yesterday. I do not think that he challenged me when I suggested that if he were sitting on this side of the House rather than on the Treasury Bench in a debate of this kind, he would be putting many of the same arguments that we are putting today.
	Let me deal with some of the points that the Foreign Secretary has raised this afternoon. First, the Scott inquiry was not the first investigation of the issue of arms to Iraq. The Select Committee on Trade and Industry carried out an investigation right at the end of the 1987 to 1992 Parliament. It did so under the sanction of the fact that that Parliament was coming to an end and that an election was inevitable. It also did so in the face of great obstacles and considerable hindrance. At least one Minister who appeared before the Committee declined to answer questions on his role in the matter, although when he eventually had to face Mr. Geoffrey Robertson, QC, in the witness box, he was rather more forthcoming. There was also a Member of Parliament who declined to give evidence to the Committee when it was engaged on what came to be known as the Iraqi supergun inquiry, and there were certainly officials whose evidence to the inquiry was later proved to be, shall we say, neither whole nor complete.

Jack Straw: Economical with the actualité.

Menzies Campbell: Perhaps.
	Scott therefore followed an imperfect inquiry, carried out by the House of Commons under the same rules as the inquiry now being carried out by the Foreign Affairs Committee.
	As for getting a busy judge to conduct the inquiry, let me remind the Foreign Secretary that Lord Cullen was a full-time judge when he was asked to conduct the inquiry into Piper Alpha, which many people regarded as a model of its kind. He was also a full-time judge when he was asked to conduct the inquiry into the Dunblane shooting tragedy. So the objection that it might be difficult to find someone who is currently exercising judicial responsibility is not necessarily one that would stand up in all circumstances.
	I also believe that it is perfectly feasible to say that the inquiry would have to be completed within a prescribed time. The Foreign Secretary is right to say that from the point of view of a judge heading up an independent inquiry, there might need to be some qualification of that, and that in special or difficult circumstances, an extension might be granted. It is not beyond our wit to create an independent inquiry, headed by a senior figure from the judiciary, with a time limit within which he and his inquiry are expected to report.
	The Foreign Secretary is right to say that an inquiry set up under the terms of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921, with all the statutory implications that that would involve, might not fit the bill because of the length of time that it might take. If the Government were willing to allow the independent and impartial scrutiny that I believe to be necessary in this case, however, we should not have much difficulty in arriving at a form of inquiry that would be adequate to meet public anxiety and appropriate to get to the bottom of these questions.
	In spite of the Foreign Secretary's vigour today, nothing that he has said has persuaded me other than that independent and impartial scrutiny is required here, as much for sake of the reputation of the House as for that of the Government. That is why my colleagues and I will be supporting the Opposition in the Lobby tonight.

Donald Anderson: I begin on a happy note of consensus. I note that both the mover of the motion and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary welcomed the conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Committee. From that point on, however, the divergence began.
	The key points of the report are set out in the summary of the conclusions and recommendations, and I need hardly go through them, save to point out that, on a great swathe of the recommendations, the all-party Committee was united. There were, of course, certain differences, but we concluded that Ministers did not mislead Parliament. The two dossiers were the focus of the report. On the allegation that the first dossier of September 2002 had been embellished or exaggerated, the Committee concluded on the basis of the evidence before it that that had not happened. There was a divergence of opinion on the role of Mr. Campbell, but the majority—with a casting vote—agreed effectively to exonerate him. The minority was agnostic and concluded that, on the basis of the evidence available, it was unable to make a decision. That was a wholly principled view. There was no part of the Committee saying that Mr. Campbell was guilty of any particular crime. Although the Committee was therefore not unanimous, there was a substantial degree of agreement.
	I am confident—I think that members of the Committee would join me in this—that the Government believed that there was a real threat of the Iraqi regime using weapons of mass destruction. What other reason could one give for the issuing of protective anti-chemical warfare uniforms to our troops? It would require a conspiratorial mind of great magnitude to imagine that our Government would have gone through the charade of equipping our forces in that way if they did not believe that the threat was real.

Richard Younger-Ross: The MOD gave Challenger 2 tanks sufficient chemicals for the detectors to run for only six hours. Does that reinforce the right hon. Gentleman's point? Were we selling our troops short, or were some people in the MOD not taking the threat seriously enough?

Donald Anderson: I was not aware of that fact, and I shall have to reflect on it. I know for certain, however, that our troops were equipped in the way that I have just described, and that chemical weapon kits were also found among the Iraqi soldiers. On the face of it, therefore, they too were being equipped for such a war. It is also clear from the part of resolution 1441 that I cited earlier that the United Nations Security Council accepted that the Saddam Hussein regime posed a real threat to international peace and security.
	I turn briefly to the points raised in the Opposition motion. In regard to the Select Committee having had insufficient time to conduct its inquiry, the schedule for the report was set unanimously by the Committee itself. It was wholly self-imposed, and for good reasons. One reason for the admittedly tight timetable was that we wanted the report to be published in time for the issues arising from it to be discussed at the meeting of the Liaison Committee with the Prime Minister on 8 July. Any criticism of the time constraints is, therefore, a criticism of the Committee.
	So far as our having had insufficient access to crucial documents in concerned, I wholly concur with what the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) has said. We stated in our report that the lack of access to such documents hampered our work. In particular, we sought interviews with the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. In my judgment, it would have been good for the Committee—and, indeed, to the advantage of the Government—had the chairman been able to endorse orally what he had stated in writing in respect of the various letters involving Mr. Campbell, and so on.

Patrick McLoughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Donald Anderson: I will, so long as I get injury time.

Patrick McLoughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House why he thinks that the Government did not trust his Committee to interview the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee?

Donald Anderson: I believe that it was not a question of trust but of the Government relying—wrongly, I think—on the jurisdictional point that that was within the province of the Intelligence and Security Committee rather than the Foreign Affairs Committee. Hence, in paragraph 169 of our report, we recommended that the Government
	"accede to requests from the Foreign Affairs Committee for access to intelligence, when the Committee can demonstrate that it is of key importance to a specific inquiry".
	Manifestly, the request to meet the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee was not a general fishing expedition. It was wholly related to our specific inquiry and, in my judgment and that of the Committee, it should have been acceded to. I hope that when my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary looks at the recommendation—within two months, he has said—he will give careful consideration to the point that we have made, and be prepared to trust us in such matters.
	The right hon. Member for Devizes made an important point in suggesting that it was now the Opposition's policy to grant the Foreign Affairs Committee access to such documents, and that they would pursue that policy if and when they were elected to govern. May I have an assurance that any future Chairman of the Committee will be able to rely wholly on the integrity of Opposition Front Benchers in that regard?

Michael Ancram: For the sake of accuracy, let me explain what I meant to say. I think that the Committee's inability to gain access to the documents is a very good reason for instituting an independent judicial inquiry.

Donald Anderson: I am not entirely satisfied with that response. The right hon. Gentleman has accused Mr. Campbell and others of not always answering the question, and I hope that, on reflection, he will look carefully at his own answer. Mine was a very simple question: am I to assume from the right hon. Gentleman's clear statement that the Opposition now believe that the Foreign Affairs Committee should be granted access to such intelligence material in the terms of recommendation 169 of our report?

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the right hon. Gentleman remains seated for too long, he will be in danger of losing the Floor.

Donald Anderson: That was a pregnant pause. I think that the silence of the Opposition spokesmen will be noted, for it was eloquent in its own way.
	The only certainty about the judicial inquiry was that it would drag on for years. Even the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), with all his persuasive powers, could not surmount the point about timing, and the fact that, if some artificial time limit were set, by definition, the inquiry would not be independent.
	I am reminded of a wonderful story told by Lord Weatherill. An elderly Jewish tailor to whom he was apprenticed, when given work to do on a suit, asked the customer, "Do you want it good or do you want it quick?" That may be part of the answer in this case; but all that we know about the judicial inquiry, given the precedents of Franks and Scott, is that it will take a very long time, and at the end of the day may deliver no more than can be delivered by the combination of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee.
	We are almost certainly reaching a time when it is not just a question of looking at what Mr. Campbell did or did not say, but of focusing on the future. There has been a media circus, sometimes using the theme "Get Campbell". Yesterday, I met UK officials returning from Baghdad, who painted a very different picture from the one conveyed to us by the press. Positive things are happening on the ground in Iraq. Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said that 98 per cent. of schools there were back at work. Alas, our press will concentrate on the 2 per cent. that are not.
	As a sort of historian myself, I believe that when historians examine these events they will not look at the Campbell-Gilligan spat; they will look at the big picture. Of course the prospectus on which we went to war is important, but they will look at the effect on the middle east peace process, and the reconstruction of Iraq. The new governing council may have its limitations, but at a press conference on 13 July, Talabani said
	"Why do you say its powers are limited? The BBC always tries to distort Iraq's news . . . the council enjoys a relatively good number of powers"—
	and he went on to list them. I believe that that, and the broad support given by a representative group of Iraqis, will be judged to be the key in the longer term.
	Let me return to the Committee's report, and the welcome that it has been given on both sides. I trust that it will be agreed that our report has fully justified the decision of our all-party Committee to conduct the inquiry, and that the fact of its having been conducted largely in public will be seen as a valuable contribution to what is an important debate on the subject of going to war in Iraq.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. As I am sure all Members realise, the 12-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches is now in operation.

John Stanley: It is a pleasure to follow the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson). He has chaired the Committee during a difficult and contentious inquiry that has involved a huge amount of work in a short time with his customary skill and patience.
	Yesterday, and again today, the Foreign Secretary made what I considered an extraordinary statement, suggesting that the Government did not consider the intelligence assessment that was made before the war in Iraq to be central to the issue of whether we should go to war. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that had the Government's motion of 18 March not suggested that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and that assessments suggested that they were there in substantial quantity, were being concealed and were likely to be effective within 45 minutes of deployment, I do not think the House could possibly have voted for it. It is profoundly disingenuous to say that war happened purely because Saddam Hussein was in breach of UN resolutions. UN resolutions are being breached throughout the world, but we do not go to war because of that.

Jack Straw: rose—

John Stanley: I will of course give way to the Foreign Secretary, but I ask him to bear it in mind that he spoke for more than half an hour and the rest of us are limited to 12 minutes.

Jack Straw: I think that I am right in saying that the right hon. Gentleman will be allowed an extra minute in injury time.
	With respect, the right hon. Gentleman has parodied what I said. The point about the September dossier—which, I may say, was produced not least because the Foreign Affairs Committee had clamoured it for in the past and at the time—is that it made the case for action against Iraq, rather than inaction. It did not make a case for military action. The strategy followed by the Government was to get the matter into the United Nations, and to seek to resolve it peacefully. It was only as a result of Iraq's failure to comply that we then brought the matter to the House.
	As for the issue of the 45 minutes, which was mentioned earlier by another Conservative Member, as far as I know it was not mentioned by a single Member on 18 March.

John Stanley: The Foreign Secretary says that I parodied his words. Yesterday, he said:
	"the intelligence assessments that were provided formed part of the background, but they were not the heart of the argument and never were."—[Official Report, 15 July 2003; Vol. 129, c. 162.]
	For a great many of us who voted on 18 March, the intelligence assessments were not part of the background at all; they were absolutely part of the foreground—part of the heart of the matter.
	As for our armed forces in Iraq, who had to put their lives on the line for the war, let me draw the Foreign Secretary's attention to a paper placed in the House of Commons Library at the time: the Government's own paper entitled "Iraq: the Military Campaign Objectives". The very first paragraph states:
	"The prime objective remains to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction and their associated programmes and means of delivery, including prohibited ballistic missiles, as set out in the relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions".
	That was the first and overriding military objective: to rid Saddam Hussein of the weapons of mass destruction that were the basis of the intelligence assessments put before the House.
	I want to say something about those assessments, and, in particular, the key assessment placed before the House in the dossier of September last year. I start with the issue of uranium from Africa. That was no minor issue but a central plank of the Government's assessment that Saddam Hussein's regime was attempting to recommence its nuclear weapons programme. What we know about the uranium from Africa story is that Mr. el-Baradei revealed to the UN in February this year that the Niger allegations were based on forged documents. We now know, from the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee—it is mentioned in the Committee's report—that the insertion of the story about uranium from Africa was, like the 45-minute claim, a suspiciously last-minute insertion into the document.
	Significantly, and remarkably, we learned last Friday for the first time, from the letter that the Foreign Secretary released to the right hon. Member for Swansea, East, that the CIA had expressed reservations to the British Government at the time that the September dossier was published about the inclusion of the claim about uranium from Africa. The Committee has taken evidence from the Foreign Secretary on that point and on the source behind the statement in the dossier. All that I can say in this public forum is that we await with great interest the views of the Intelligence and Security Committee on the adequacy, or otherwise, of the source for that information.
	The 45-minute claim is of huge significance, not because of the Campbell allegations, which—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) said—have been a smokescreen and a diversion. It is important because the Government highlighted that claim in the September 2002 dossier. It appeared no less than four times—in the Prime Minister's foreword, in the executive summary and in two other places. That 45-minute claim underpinned completely the Government's claim for the immediacy of the need to take military action. Those who voted on 18 March had to consider carefully their position if they failed to support the Government, given that they had been advised by the Prime Minister, with access to all the information available, that Saddam Hussein was a dictator who had used WMD before and now had them ready and available to use within 45 minutes. That was a significant claim.
	The Foreign Affairs Committee took evidence in public and in private, and of course I cannot reveal what was told to us in private. However, I am entitled, as an individual member of the Committee, to offer my own personal conclusions on the validity of the 45-minute claim. My conclusions are, first, that the intelligence base for the claim was very narrow and, secondly, that the accuracy of that intelligence base could not be guaranteed.
	It remains to be seen whether that intelligence will be validated on the ground. I do not rule out the possibility that the Iraq survey group may discover, hidden in some clever and fiendish way, chemical or biological weapons ready to use and located within 45 minutes of the appropriate delivery systems in place in Iraq at the relevant time. However, if no such discoveries were made, that would not surprise me in the least.

Tam Dalyell: Can the right hon. Gentleman say anything about the deterioration of any chemical weapons that Iraq may have had in the late 1980s or early 1990s?

John Stanley: That is an issue on which we took public evidence. The published volume of evidence contains some interesting evidence from an expert witness who worked at Porton Down and has great experience on the issue.
	The third question is the biggest: the key issue of whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction, especially chemical and biological weapons, irrespective of whether or not they were within 45 minutes of being ready to use. On that issue, the Committee concluded that the jury is out. I was amazed that the Prime Minister, before the Liaison Committee and in answer to the right hon. Member for Swansea, East, said that the jury was not out. I do not understand on what basis the Prime Minister made that statement. The jury is clearly out, because no chemical or biological munitions have been found, and that is a key issue.
	As of today, nearly four months after we invaded Iraq, none of the central intelligence assessment claims in the September 2002 dossier has been validated on the ground. No evidence has been uncovered that Saddam Hussein was restarting his nuclear weapons programme. We have no evidence of imports of uranium from Africa or of continued production of chemical and biological weapons. We have no evidence of up to 20 longer-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching British bases in Cyprus or of chemical and biological weapons that could be deployed within 45 minutes. We have no evidence of any weapons of mass destruction at all so far. Perhaps that will change with some dramatic discovery by the Iraq survey group, but if by the time it has completed its work we are in the same position as today, it will raise serious personal issues for the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister.

Ernie Ross: Before I decided to take part in this debate, I thought that I would read what I had said in the debate on 24 September—in case another hon. Member raised it—and what reason I had given for supporting the Government. I talked then about someone who was a member of CARDRI—the Campaign against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq—most of his political life, who worked against Saddam Hussein and who opposed those who sold weapons to him. That person, because of his other interests in the middle east, also had a sneaking hope that perhaps Iraq could use its military influence to put pressure on the middle east peace process to bring it to a conclusion. However, he was regularly let down by Saddam Hussein, who allegedly supported the Palestinians but who did things that were against the interests of peace in the middle east and the Palestinians specifically. One need only look at how Palestinians were treated in Iraq—they were subsumed into the Iraqi army as part of the defence forces—to understand that although Saddam sought to interfere in the peace process by rewarding those who carried out acts of terrorism on the west bank, he did not assist the peace process itself. I still had the lingering hope that he might have played a useful role, but he did not.
	It was obvious that things had to change in Iraq. As hon. Members said, children were dying in Iraq and people were suffering under Saddam Hussein. Getting rid of Saddam was desirable, but it had to be done in a legitimate way that was consistent with international law. At the same time, however, contradictions existed in respect of international law, Iraq, and this House.
	As I said, I refreshed my memory of my previous speech, in which I made the point that
	"if we do not get the United Nations resolution, and if we do not get the inspectors back and the removal of the weapons of mass destruction, in my judgment regime change would indeed be justified—if necessary, by military means."—[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c. 85.]
	Why was I thinking that way? I think that it was not so much because I was impressed by any particular dossier, but because the Americans were prepared to go back to the UN to get resolution 1441. My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary made the commitment that we would work for a specific resolution. That caused me to support the Government in that period.
	Towards the end of my speech on 24 September, I said that I hoped that we would get a specific resolution. I have worked in international law, with special reference to the middle east, and I am aware of how non-specific and ambiguous most UN resolutions can be. However, 1441 was as specific as it could have been; it was certainly one of the most specific resolutions that I have seen. When the second resolution was not achieved, I found no problem in voting for action against Saddam Hussein, his family and his regime on the grounds of his non-compliance.
	If we learned one thing about Saddam Hussein, it was that he was a complete Stalinist and a unilateralist. He signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the chemical weapons convention, but flouted them immediately. He agreed to the UN ceasefire in 1991, under which he was to give up nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, but then spent a decade lying, cheating, and hiding. He deliberately denied the inspectors access and did not allow them to do their job. He attempted to conceal weapons in all sorts of places, and put pressure on scientists to deny that weapons programmes were going on.
	We had to bring Saddam Hussein to account. The House had debated the question of sanctions and their impact on the people of Iraq, but we had never really been able to deal with the subject. The closed nature of Iraqi society led some of us to believe that we could use the mosque system in the Muslim community to get aid to people and children in Iraq. However, that proved to be impossible. The Stalinist running Iraq was clearly capable of taking anyone on. The fear that he instilled made certain that people would never attempt to undermine anything that he did.
	The Ba'ath party and Saddam Hussein exploited the oil-for-food programme for their own benefit. They denied food and essential medical supplies and material to the people and children of Iraq, including the Marsh Arabs, at great, ongoing and deadly cost. The Iraqi elite, however, were not denied food. They lived in Saddam's palaces and enjoyed a lifestyle that was revealed by the coalition forces to have been way beyond anything imaginable.
	The no-fly zones were another reason why I said that I would be happy to support regime change. The zones, in both the north and south of Iraq, were highly dubious and were not legitimate under international law. I recall their being debated in this House when I was a member of the Opposition, on the other side of the Chamber. I told the then Foreign Secretary—now Lord Hurd—that there was no international law that allowed us to put the no-fly zones in place. I know that the Foreign Office considered that it could find a suitable framework in international law, but the legality of the no-fly zones is still the subject of argument.
	Nevertheless, the no-fly zones saved the Marsh Arabs and allowed them to survive. Saddam was able to drain the marshes, but the Marsh Arabs survived. By the same token, the northern no-fly zones allowed the Kurds to develop a society. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said in his statement yesterday, the coalition forces are now feeding 26 million people. He said:
	"Preliminary figures for June show that food rations were distributed to about 26 million Iraqis in a target population of 27 million. Food distribution is being extended to the Marsh Arabs, a people who I understand received no food at all under Saddam Hussein."—[Official Report, 15 July 2003; Vol. 409, c. 153.]
	The no-fly zones allowed people to survive, and we are now feeding those people.
	The Iraqi Kurds had been fighting among themselves, having been turned against each other by Saddam Hussein. Once they had resolved their issues, the northern no-fly zone allowed them to develop a society and infrastructure, one result of which was an improvement in the child mortality rate. When an administration was established, the first thing that the Iraqi Kurds did was to affirm the territorial integrity of Iraq. They did not attempt to move towards breaking away from Iraq, but said that they wanted to form a government. They are now part of the provisional authority in Iraq.
	The Iraqi Kurds have survived because of the no-fly zones, even though those zones were illegal. The British and Americans broke international law and, in so doing, allowed the survival of people in Iraq who would not have survived otherwise. It is clear that we were dealing with a person in such complete control of Iraq that we in this House could not have allowed the weapons inspectors to continue for much longer.
	I shall not comment on the Foreign Affairs Committee report. I am not in a position to do so, and I do not want to disagree with the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley). However, although he did not mean to, when he spoke about his own view of information that he had received he gave a clear indication as to what that information—to which we are not privy—might have been. Whether he intended to or not, people will be bound to look at his speech to try and ascertain what the information was.

John Stanley: I made it quite clear that I was expressing my personal conclusions.

Ernie Ross: I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman says, but he had said earlier that the Committee had received a specific briefing. People are bound to draw an inference, and see an implication, when two such statements are made in the same paragraph. That is a danger for Select Committees; they need to work out how to handle the information that they are given.
	The way ahead for the House is to welcome the report and to look forward to the Foreign Secretary's response. Much more important, however, is dealing with the more immediate problems of Iraq and the middle east. On 14 and 15 April this year, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) and I attended a conference in Doha, in Qatar. The experience was amazing. Although there was anger among the Arab participants about the action of the coalition forces, it was anger that someone had had to come from outside to do what they should probably have done themselves. They hoped that if we could give the Iraqi people the opportunity, they would demonstrate that they could run their country. That is the message that the Foreign Secretary gave us yesterday.

Patrick McLoughlin: It seems that much of the past parliamentary year has been dominated by Iraq and the situation and circumstances leading up to our debate on 18 March. I congratulate the Foreign Affairs Committee on its report, although it is a pity that the Committee could not agree more generally on many issues. Some of the conclusions were pushed through on the Chairman's casting vote, which shows that the Committee was not wholly united on some serious questions.
	The changes in the Government's attitude are interesting. Like many Members, I received numerous letters in the run-up to the debate on 18 March trying to persuade me not to support the war and that what the Government were doing was wrong. However, it was the first time that I had seen the Prime Minister take on public opinion. He did so because he passionately believed that he was right. I took the view that, if a right-wing American President and a centre-left British Prime Minister were assuring the House of Commons that there was grave danger to our country, we would have been foolish and, in some respects, irresponsible not to accept that assurance and that warning.
	We had not held such a debate before, and it was with a heavy heart that I supported the war, because I was aware that people would lose their lives in conflict as a result of my using my vote. In conflict, lives are always lost. Sadly, that has been true for a number of families in this country, who have been devastated by the war—it will live with them for ever.
	Sometimes, tough decisions have to be taken and the Prime Minister was courageous in the way that he persuaded the House. He spoke with a conviction that we have not heard from him before. As I said earlier, he took on public opinion, which, undoubtedly, was not with him.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), the Leader of the Opposition, throughout the run-up to, and the entirety of, the conflict in Iraq, also showed a sense of duty. He showed the right way for an Opposition to conduct themselves on such major issues. Had there been a Labour Opposition at that time, would we have had a similar response from the leader of the Labour party?

David Cairns: What about the Falklands?

Patrick McLoughlin: Yes, Labour did give support on the Falklands.

Bill Rammell: Does the hon. Gentleman recall the support that the then leader of the Labour party, Neil Kinnock, gave the Conservative Government during the first Gulf war?

Patrick McLoughlin: I accept that. But the first Gulf war was far easier to understand. There was an invasion, so it was easier to see the necessity for recapture. No vote was taken on that war, and most of the debates at that time were held on the Adjournment at the request of the then Opposition—[Interruption.] I was merely wondering whether, if there had been a substantive vote on such a matter, there would have been similar support from a Labour Opposition.
	I want to explain why there should be a public inquiry and why this situation is different: I cannot recall a Cabinet Minister who had sat at the Cabinet table during the Falklands conflict and the first Gulf war, saying after those events that the Government's action had been wrong. On this occasion, that has happened. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) was a long-serving member of the Cabinet and she voted for the war, but now she says:
	"I have concluded that the PM had decided to go to war in August sometime and he duped us all along. He had decided for reasons that he alone knows to go to war over Iraq and to create this sense of urgency and drive it: the way the intelligence was spun was part of that drive. There was political spin put on the intelligence information to create a sense of urgency. It was a political decision that came from the Prime Minister. We were misled: I think we were deceived in the way it was done . . . The suggestion that there was a risk of chemical and biological weapons being weaponised and threatening us in a short time was spin...That didn't come from the security services."
	That was a member of the Cabinet, someone who had access to information.
	What did the former Leader of the House and the Foreign Secretary's predecessor say? The right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) called for a public inquiry. The calls for a public inquiry are not coming merely from an opportunist Opposition; they reflect serious concern in the nation about our deploying our forces in war. I believe that the Government are committing a serious folly by not accepting that such an inquiry should take place. People are asking what the Government have to hide. If they have nothing to hide, why are they afraid of the inquiry?
	I say sincerely to Members on the Treasury Bench that it comes a little rich from the Government when they tell us that the inquiry will take time, or when the Foreign Secretary told us, as he did a little while ago, of the huge cost of such a public inquiry, because the Labour Government have held more inquiries into the actions of the previous Government than ever before. We have had the Phillips inquiry, the Bloody Sunday inquiry and others that the Prime Minister has launched into the actions of the Conservative Government. Not so long ago, the Prime Minister used to accuse the Conservatives of being responsible for BSE, and he set up the Phillips inquiry. He can no longer make that charge, because the inquiry showed that his allegations were rubbish.
	The Government have seriously mishandled Iraq since the war. That point cannot be made too strongly. They could have retained the unanimity of the parties as they moved forward. The hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (David Cairns) mentioned Labour support for Baroness Thatcher when, as Prime Minister, she deployed her troops in the south Atlantic. Referring to the "awkward squad" in a response to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), the then leader of the Labour party said:
	"I can assure him that, if he had been a member of the last Labour Cabinet, he would know that my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Lever qualifies for that appellation better than anyone else in the country, rising even to the high standards of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian".
	In those days, Michael Foot was very content that the inquiry should go ahead. He went on to say,
	"For the rest, I believe that what the right hon. Lady has proposed is right and that the House would be wise to support it. I emphasise what she said, and what we have always understood in our discussions, about the fullness of the report to be made to the House and to the country. That is an absolute requirement, but I do not believe that there has been any difference between us on that."—[Official Report, 8 July 1982; Vol. 27, c. 477.]
	What happened this year was right. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein has been a lesson to world order. I was immensely impressed, as I am sure were many of my hon. Friends, by the speech of the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) during the many debates that we had in the lead-up to the decision. We certainly did not expect her to propose that course of action. She was clear in her own mind. She said that she would support the Government if it were only a case of regime change. She was in no doubt about that. However, that was not the assurance that the Government gave us—it was not what the Prime Minister assured us was the reason for doing it.
	I cannot understand why the Government are now so reluctant—why the matter has been so mishandled. For example, Alastair Campbell was not going to appear before the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, then he appeared before it and then we had that incredible outburst on the Channel 4 news of the same night and, all of a sudden, the Prime Minister's reputation has been put in grave jeopardy. If it has been put in jeopardy, it is because of the way he has run his Government in the past six years. They have become a Government almost created by spin and run by spin, but on a matter such as war we should get to the truth and that is why we should have an inquiry.

David Cairns: In the last few moments of his speech, the hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) let the cat out of the bag. He said that he agreed with the Government, he thought that what we did in Iraq was right and getting rid of Saddam Hussein was right. He just does not like the Government. He does not like the fact that we did that and he is going to find some reason to oppose it.
	Earlier, the hon. Gentleman made a disgraceful slur against the patriotism of former Labour leaders by saying that they would not have supported military action. I think that I have to go back to George Lansbury to find a Labour leader who did not support British troops—[Interruption.]—other than Suez.

Julian Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Cairns: The hon. Gentleman may be about to mention that subject, but I recommend him not to drag it up at this point if he wants to keep me with this case.

Julian Lewis: The hon. Gentleman has guessed wrongly. One thing that is worth remembering about the Falklands is that at the time there was a man who was about to become Labour leader—Neil Kinnock—who wholly opposed that expedition and said so publicly at a time when our troops were being deployed.

David Cairns: This really is the stuff of desperation. The Conservatives make an allegation that turns out to be complete nonsense and then they scan the Labour Back Benches for people who were about to become leader of the Labour party and might have supported it. They should think before they make those absurd allegations.
	I join the long queue of people who are thanking and praising the Foreign Affairs Committee for its reports. The Chairman said, I think with a little irony, that everyone was standing up to praise the report but going on to say that it was inadequate because the Committee did not have access to the information, because there should be a further judicial inquiry or whatever.
	For someone such as myself who is a new Member of Parliament and approaches these issues with trepidation in the presence of people who know far more about them, the report was an extraordinarily useful primer into the workings of the intelligence agencies and the way that intelligence is gathered, filtered and compiled. It is an excellent case study into how that happens. I am sure that everyone here has read it, but I commend it to people outside who have not done so. The Committee asked some specific questions of the Government and I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary assure the House that he would deal with those within the two-month period that he has to respond in full to the report. We will await his reply with interest.
	In an excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) did well to remind us of the broader context within which the decisions were taken. After all, the report is entitled "The Decision to go to War in Iraq", not "Finding out whether a dossier was dodgy", nor is it about a particular claim about 45 minutes. It was about the decision in the broadest sense and my hon. Friend did well to bring us back to what really matters.
	The United Kingdom did not pluck Iraq out of thin air or stick a needle into an atlas and say, "There's a country that we do not like. We'll manufacture evidence to make up some sort of case for deposing a leader who is inconvenient to us." That simply did not happen. As my hon. Friend reminded us, we must remember the 17 UN resolutions on Iraq and the action that had been taken up to that date—the no-fly zones as well as the sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime. It was not the UK's intelligence services alone that were making allegations about weapons of mass destruction—it was not only the United States intelligence services that were making those claims.
	I am not one of those hon. Members who is in the habit of hanging out with members of the intelligence and security forces—at least, not that I am aware of—but I recently had an opportunity with some colleagues to meet a former head of the very well-known national security service of another country. I appreciate that this story is anecdotal and that there were no minutes, so hon. Members cannot challenge whether what I am saying is true, but I asked that gentlemen, who has many years' experience in the field, whether the weapons of mass destruction existed, whether we were duped, and if they did exist where they were. He told me in clear terms that I should be in no doubt that the entire world intelligence community had those doubts, knew that Saddam Hussein had been developing weapons of mass destruction and was continuing that programme with varying degrees of success. As we know, he had attempted to implement it in various ways with varying degrees of success.
	Therefore, it was not a case of the UK acting alone or acting with a right-wing American President; it was the expression of the entire world community, which culminated in resolution 1441. That resolution was passed unanimously by countries including France, Russia and Syria, and it was acknowledged that there was a genuine threat from Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. That is important. This was not a huge propaganda exercise got up by Alastair Campbell—he is not that powerful or influential. The Conservative party is throwing up a smokescreen by pursuing that route.
	At heart, we are all—the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), the hon. Member for West Derbyshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West—reflecting on why we voted to go to war. We are asking ourselves, "Why did I cast that vote? What was the evidence base upon which I cast it?" Two dossiers were uppermost in my mind when I cast my vote in support of military action. I read them very carefully and they swayed me. I regret to tell my hon. Friend the Minister that they were not the dossiers of September and February that the Government produced; they were two distinct dossiers. One was a Command Paper that put together all 17 of the UN resolutions against Saddam Hussein one after the other, with their 29 separate obligations on Iraq and Saddam Hussein, the majority of which had been unfulfilled to that point. Reading those resolutions consecutively brought home powerfully to me that the entire world community was concerned about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Of course, the resolutions culminated in 1441.
	The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) told us that he thought that the fact that the Government were attempting to secure a further resolution after 1441 demonstrated that they were not convinced of the legal basis given by 1441 for going to war. I refute that—that is not my understanding of why the Government were attempting to secure a second resolution. They openly said that it would be politically preferable to have that position explicitly set out in a new resolution. [Interruption.] I recommend that my hon. Friends who are dissenting from that view consider what was said at the time by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn), who argued very cogently that we were voting not to go to war, but to support resolution 1441. He said very clearly that he would not vote for that because resolution 1441 provided a basis for further military action. He was opposed to that then, and it was a very principled stand to take. I listened to him and argued with him at the time, but not about whether resolution 1441 provided a basis to go to war, as we agreed about that.

Jeremy Corbyn: Does my hon. Friend not recall that the Prime Minister asserted very strongly that not only would he go for a second resolution, but that he intended to get one and that, after he failed to get one, he told the House in terms that we were going to war to disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction, which has so far proved—how shall I put it—difficult to justify?

David Cairns: I was agreeing with my hon. Friend right up until the last point that he made. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister should be congratulated on trying to go for a second—or an 18th or 19th—resolution and on the way in which his influence on the American President brought him into the whole process at the United Nations in the first place, so I do not accept that resolution 1441 provided no legal basis for the military action that was taken.
	I mentioned two dossiers, and the Command Paper was uppermost in my mind at the time of going to war. The second dossier is the last report of the weapons inspectors, which was produced in early March and runs to 167 pages in the original version and 173 pages in the final version. Reading that document—page after page about the Iraqi regime's non-compliance with the weapons inspectors—helped to convince me that that regime would simply never comply with the weapons inspectors because it had no intention of ever doing so. That put the regime in clear contradiction of UN resolution 1441, which provided a basis for such action.
	Either way, we cast our votes on whether or not to engage in military action on that fateful night, certainly in the knowledge that, as the hon. Member for West Derbyshire said, if we voted for war and war came, there would be casualties and deaths. I put it to him and to hon. Members who voted not to go to war that, if we had not gone to war and deposed Saddam Hussein, people would have died in any event, perhaps in even greater numbers than died in the short conflict. We must not forget that vital point.
	Of course, the judicial inquiry issue is the gravamen of the motion. I found it extraordinary that the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) complained that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary spent so much time addressing that issue when that is what the motion calls for. The entire motion is one long preamble, with a specific call at the end for an independent inquiry. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary demolished that case in his very effective speech, but the right hon. Gentleman simply said in response that it was unfair that my right hon. Friend addressed the judicial inquiry issue.
	The only time that Opposition Members mention judicial inquiries is when they are asking for them to be stopped, and the hon. Member for West Derbyshire complained about the cost of the Saville inquiry and the length of time that it has taken.

Patrick McLoughlin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Cairns: No, I will not give way; I have less than a minute left to speak.
	The Saville inquiry is considering not a previous Government, but what happened on a fateful day in Northern Ireland.
	I believe that we were right to go to war. I believe that history will show that that was the right thing to do. I believe that weapons of mass destruction will be found in that massive country, which is the size of France, when the inspectors go about their job unhindered by the Iraqi regime. I will await the outcome of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and I have confidence in its ability to get to the heart and truth of this matter.

Patrick Cormack: I do not know whether weapons of mass destruction will be found. I believe that they probably will be, but I agree very much with the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (David Cairns) when he talked about being most influenced by the Command Paper that tabulated all the United Nations resolutions. On this occasion, if perhaps on no other, the hon. Gentleman and I are very much on the same side.
	I am bound to say that when the House, very ill advisedly in my view, changed its hours, I hoped that there might be the compensating advantage that short debates early in the afternoon would at least be attended by the protagonists. Yet it is perhaps less than an hour before the winding-up speeches and there is no Foreign Secretary and no shadow Foreign Secretary. The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) has, to his credit, returned to the Chamber, but where is the right hon. Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, whose report is central to the debate? He made his speech and off he went.
	I have a great regard for the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, but his place is above all in the Chamber while this matter is being debated. I am particularly sorry that he is not here because I want to talk a little bit about the Foreign Affairs Committee. I had the privilege of serving on it until a few weeks ago. I voted with the Government and against setting up a judicial inquiry when we last debated this issue. I made it plain that I was unhappy about the fact that the Foreign Affairs Committee had decided to embark on this road and I said then, and I have said since, that I believe that the Intelligence and Security Committee is the right Committee to investigate the matter. I still hold to that view.
	The report, published after prodigious labour and a great deal of burning of midnight oil, has not taken us very much further forward, save to indicate that the one degree of unanimity appears to be that the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee do not believe that the House was deliberately misled. That at least is good, but I argued on the Foreign Affairs Committee that we should not have this inquiry. I did not leave the Foreign Affairs Committee specifically because of that. I do not want to mislead the House myself. I had already informed my hon. Friend the deputy Chief Whip and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee that, for various reasons that they fully understood, I would not remain on the Committee beyond the end of the summer. I came to that conclusion very reluctantly.
	When we came to discuss this issue, I argued—the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope) knows this very well, as he is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee—very forcefully that we should not have the inquiry. I asked for my dissent to be minuted, and it was. When I then discovered that I could not, for very good reason, attend two crucial sittings, I felt that I should not put myself or my colleagues in the position where I would probably write a minority report not having heard all the evidence. No one should put his name to that report, for or against, without hearing every last bit of evidence.
	So I brought forward my withdrawal and the House discharged me from the Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway) was appointed in my stead. I wish him happy years on the Committee, but he has not been able to begin on a very good note because one of the great defining characteristics of Select Committees is that they try to examine issues without being over-influenced by party prejudice. The Select Committee reports that have most effect in the House—I speak as someone who has been a Member for a very long time and been involved in a number of such reports—are those that are unanimous or near unanimous.
	The Committee has done what I prophesied would happen if it embarked on the inquiry: it has divided more or less on party lines. On one or two occasions, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) voted with my right hon. and hon. Friends, but the Committee has divided more or less on party lines, and I believe that that is a very great pity indeed. It will undermine the effectiveness of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and it will take a long while to recover from that.

John Stanley: I invite my hon. Friend to look at the Votes and Proceedings, and he will see not merely that the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) voted with both Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members, but that the Chairman of the Committee also did so on two or three occasions.

Patrick Cormack: My right hon. Friend's intervention, frankly, in no way demolishes the point that I am making. If one looks at the significant Divisions, one finds that they were along party lines. One even finds that what was arguably the most significant Division of all was carried by the casting vote of the Chairman. That is a fact; it is there for everyone to read, and it does not reflect credit on the House when that sort of thing happens with one of its very senior Select Committees. I deeply regret that because I cherished my membership of that Committee. I tried to be an assiduous member, and I wish it every possible success in the future. That is totally genuine.
	When we come to this particular issue, however, nothing has significantly changed apart from the attitude of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition. I deeply regret that. I thought that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made a brave and proper speech in support of the Prime Minister on 18 March. The Prime Minister made what was probably the best prime ministerial speech that I have heard in 33 years in this House. I have certainly never heard a better one. It was as good as that by Mrs. Thatcher on the Falklands and other great prime ministerial speeches that I have been privileged to hear. When the Prime Minister addressed this House, as I said in the previous debate, I believe that he spoke in good faith.
	Of course, the so-called dodgy dossier incident was not particularly well handled. Does that seriously alter the material facts of the case, however? No, it does not. One is tempted to think that dodgy dossiers have had a place in the history of the Labour party—I am surprised that no one has yet resurrected the Zinoviev letter. The fact is, however, that although elements of the Government's handling could have been better, although the Prime Minister, as I have said before, has created difficulties for himself by his over-reliance on spin on many issues, and although he has my implacable opposition to many things that he has done and proposes to do—and will continue to have it—nevertheless, on this issue, he behaved as a proper national leader should. He had the support from my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary that he deserved. Nothing that has happened since has altered my opinion on that.
	I must say this to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench: rehearsing the mantra, "Nobody will ever believe a word that he says," does no good to them, the political process or this place. Yes, Labour Members did it to us as our Government fell apart between 1992 and 1997. By visiting on them what they did to us, or seeking to do so, especially over a grave national issue, however, we serve only to increase public cynicism and dislike of the political process, on which the House should be united to allay and to answer.
	I therefore beg my right hon. and hon. Friends to take heed of a quotation from Jonathan Swift:
	"Lash the vice but spare the name".
	Attack the judgment but do not impugn the sincerity.
	On this issue above all, let us not undermine the honourable credibility of our position as the Opposition by nitpicking over these matters, which do not affect the material issues that we are discussing—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) says from a sedentary position that this is a question of weapons of mass destruction. No one who has studied the matter, who has taken part in the debates in the House, or who was here at the time of the first Gulf war, can doubt that we were dealing with one of the most evil tyrants to deface the world scene since the second world war. No one can doubt that not only did he have the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction but that he produced weapons of mass destruction. What was the state of those particular weapons at the time that we went to war in March I do not know, and I do not much care. I believe that the decision to go to war was entirely justified. All the UN resolutions, which were detailed in the Command Paper, and which showed this man thumbing his nose at the international community, gave sufficient justification for this country to go to war.
	It grieves me deeply that my party, to which I am honoured to belong, should have started nitpicking when it was so right to give support on the principal issue. It also grieves me that those young men and women in Iraq at the moment—I have spoken to some of them, and we still have 11,000 out there—are wondering whether we have lost our marbles in this place. They are helping to bring to Iraq—a country that has been subjugated to an evil regime for the best part of half a century and that has never known democracy—an infrastructure, both physical and political, that will allow that nation to exploit properly in its own interests its indigenous oil wealth and to become a force for stability in the middle east and in the world beyond. What do we do? We spend our time looking at these silly accusations, which have no substance, and I am ashamed of my party for doing it. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will desist—certainly, if they do not, I will not.
	Let us move on. Perhaps there is a paucity of attendance in the Chamber this afternoon because our colleagues think that we have said enough.

Ann Clwyd: The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), in his customary candid and robust way, has expressed many of the views that I hold. I have on many occasions argued for regime change. I believe that it was the right thing to do. I might have wished for a different approach to it, and I tried to argue many times in this House that it was possible to indict members of the regime in the same way that Milosevic was indicted while he was still head of state. It was unfortunate that despite INDICT—the organisation that I chair—taking evidence to the Governments of four countries, including this one, not one Government was prepared to act on the evidence that we had given them. That would have been my preferred option, as I am sure it would have been for many other Members of the House. I also thank the hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) for his kind words.
	Clearly, when one has seen and been involved for such a long time in events in Iraq, one can describe them with some passion and conviction, and in the belief that something ought to have been done. I believed as far back as 1984 that something needed to be done. In 1987, I was chair of an organisation called CARDRI—the Campaign against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq—which was the only pressure group in this country that highlighted the excesses of Saddam Hussein's regime. The group wrote newsletters, published books and used every opportunity to try to make the world take notice of the atrocities that had taken place since the beginning of Saddam Hussein's regime. In 1987, I put out a newsletter on behalf of CARDRI that called for Saddam Hussein to be divested of his chemical and biological weapons.
	In 1988, Halabja took place. No one took any notice of what we had said in 1987. This country continued to sell arms to the Iraqi regime and to deal with members of the regime as though they were honourable people—of course they were not. In 1988, I also took a group of women from the House of Commons to visit some of the survivors of Halabja in a London hospital.
	At the beginning of this year—the last time that I spoke to the House about my visits to Iraq—the Kurds took me to the area of the country between Chamchamal and the road to Kirkuk, which was the dividing area between Saddam's Iraq and the Kurdish part of Iraq. The Kurds pointed to rockets on the hillside. They believed that chemical and biological warheads were to be fired in their direction. They were so convinced of that that they asked me to ask our Prime Minister to provide them with protective suits. I made that point to the Prime Minister and in the Chamber on my return. The Kurds contacted me several times during the following weeks to ask when they would receive the protection. They were close to everything that was going on and had their own intelligence. They sincerely believed that chemical and biological warheads existed, although I do not know whether they did or not.
	I did not make an argument about weapons of mass destruction. I argued that we needed to take action in Iraq for humanitarian reasons. When I spoke in March about the plastic shredder that was used to kill in one of Saddam's prisons, I never imagined that only a month ago in Baghdad—after the war—I would read in a chillingly meticulous record that one of the methods of execution in Saddam's prisons was mincing—that was the translation from the Arabic. I had finished a press conference at the British embassy in Baghdad when a person from Fox television asked me to take a dossier that the company had been given that was an account of methods of execution. I read some of the methods outlined in the 56 pages—they were horrific.
	The Abu Ghraib prison is the largest in Iraq. Since the early 1980s, I have read about executions that took place there and methods used by the regime to deal with its opponents in the prison. I visited the prison in the company of the Americans. When we reached the gate, it was locked, and the people inside refused to open it until they had received instructions from a higher military commander. We stood around for some time talking to children who were playing around the prison. The prison could house up to 75,000 people. The total prison population of this country is about 75,000, so those people could be contained in that prison alone. The 15 and 16-year-old boys who were playing around the prison had been guards there. They told us that only one day before the Americans arrived at the prison, the remaining prisoners had been killed. They had been stood in trenches up their waists and shot through the head.
	There are murals of Saddam Hussein on the corridors of the prison, which is gruesome beyond imagination. The murals show Saddam with a hawk on his shoulder, Saddam with a rocket launcher with a dove in its barrel and Saddam in a silk shirt with a cigar. His victims were taken from dark and overcrowded cells to the execution block that had ceiling hooks and levers that catapulted them to a grizzly death in the pits below. Some remained alive, so the guards broke their necks by standing on them. The United Nations could have continued passing resolutions for the next 50 years and sending inspectors and rapporteurs into Iraq, but in the end, despite my reservations, there was no realistic alternative to war.
	When I was in Iraq, the people on the streets to whom I talked were irritated because the debate on weapons of mass destruction was raging here at the time. When I asked them what they thought about the weapons, they were amazed that anyone was talking about them at all. They said, "Don't they care about us? Don't they care about the mass graves? Don't they care about the torture?" I assured them that we did care about all those things but that people were nevertheless worried about weapons of mass destruction.

Tam Dalyell: If that is the only side of the story, how does my hon. Friend explain the attacks on American troops in Baghdad, which happen day in, day out and are alas increasing? That is lamentable.

Ann Clwyd: It is lamentable; my hon. Friend is right. But he must know some of the reasons for that. An Iraqi friend in this country, who had a brother in the Iraqi army for 35 years to whom he had spoken recently on the telephone, was told that people are being offered $600 a head for shooting at American soldiers. Of course, my hon. Friend must know that there are also the remnants of the regime—the remnants of the Ba'ath party who have so much to lose because the regime has gone, and the fedayeen who fought for Saddam. There are also extremists. For all those reasons, there is still insecurity in the country.
	For people to feel secure in Iraq now, it is imperative that they know that Saddam Hussein is either dead or arrested. They need to know that his two terrible sons are either dead or arrested. That is necessary because people feel insecure. When I spoke to people on the streets, they said, and this is no exaggeration, "Thanks to Bush and Blair." That was said to me many times. Sometimes I would ask a man a question and he would turn his head away. When I asked why he was doing that, I was told, "He thinks that the Ba'athists are still watching him, and if they come back into power, he will get into trouble." That is the level of concern that the people still feel.
	I say to my hon. Friend: stand at the mass grave at al-Hillah, where between 10,000 and 15,000 people are buried, hands tied behind their backs, bullets through their brains. Look at the pitiful possessions on the ground that the forensic scientists are going through—a watch, a faded ID card, a comb, a bit of cloth. Watch an old woman in her black chador, with tattoos on her hands, looking through the plastic bags on top of the unidentified bodies that have been placed back in the graves for something to help her to find her son. Stand at the mass grave near Kirkuk. Look at the skeletons now tenderly reburied in simple wooden coffins. Talk to Nasir al-Hussein, who was only 12 at the time of the 1991 mass arrests. He, his mother, uncle and cousins were piled on to buses, and then the executions started down a farm road in the middle of the country. People were thrown into a pit, machine-gunned and buried with a bulldozer. Nasir crawled out of the mass grave, leaving his dead relatives behind.
	The killing fields of al-Hillah and Kirkuk are unremarkable, but here are some of the hundreds of thousands of the perhaps 1.5 million dead or missing in Iraq. Saddam's victims were the Shi'as, the Kurds and the communists—the people of Iraq. Now the secrets of that evil and despotic regime are being revealed. How much more killing might there have been? My hon. Friends may carry on about weapons of mass destruction, but I think that the action that we took was the right one, and I will always defend it.

John Maples: I agree with what the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) has said. She has a long and honourable record of reminding us what a dreadful regime that was, and if ever there was a case for regime change on humanitarian grounds, this was surely it. But of course that is not the basis on which the Government went to war.
	Interestingly, the United States Government do not have the same problem, because they basically said what the hon. Lady said, "This is an extremely unpleasant individual, who is murdering millions of his own citizens and destabilising the region, and we are not going to put up with it any longer." If the Prime Minister had come here and said that, I would have supported that, but that is not what he said. What he did, at great length, was to construct a legal case for going to war. I do not know whether that is because he felt that that was necessary, or because he felt that it was necessary to carry the majority of Labour MPs with him, but he did it.
	That surprises me to some extent because the House was very willing to go to war in Kosovo on the grounds of humanitarian intervention when 30 people had been killed in the so-called Racak massacre. That intervention was clearly illegal by any standards of international law. There was absolutely no justification for it. If there is a doctrine of humanitarian intervention, it would not have extended to that. It certainly would have extended to Iraq, but that is not the case that was made.
	I rejoiced in the outcome. I believe that the policy that we and the United States are pursuing will result in great benefits in the region. Progress—albeit modest and slow—has started towards the rule of law and democracy. There have been more elections in the middle east in the past six months than for a very long time outside Israel. All that could, and I hope will, result in a much more stable region and cut off the finance and support for many terrorist movements. However, no one would deny that it is a high-risk policy. It may or may not result in that, but it is worth a try and I hope that it succeeds.
	However, the issue is not whether we were right to go to war; the issue is the Government's credibility. So many question marks hang over the evidence presented to Parliament that it has become an issue all of its own. The crucial question is, "Did the Government misuse or misrepresent intelligence information?" There are so many possible indicators that they did that those questions have to be answered. We have tried to get them answered and, to a large extent, failed. They cannot remain unanswered for much longer.
	The central allegation about the WMD dossier is that it was manipulated because the 45-minute claim did not justify inclusion. It was not just Andrew Gilligan who made that allegation. We set out in the report a series of newspaper articles that appeared around the same time. Many people within the machine were talking to journalists. Pauline Neville-Jones, a former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, told us:
	"There was clearly turbulence inside the machine".
	We are not talking about some concoction got up by one journalist at the BBC.
	Those of us who heard Andrew Gilligan could not simply dismiss his evidence. His source was right about two things: first, that the 45-minute allegation was a late entry into the field and, secondly, that it was single sourced. He said that before anyone else and the Government have since confirmed it. He clearly had a source who knew quite a lot about what was going on. Because his evidence could not be dismissed, the Committee had difficulty in reaching a conclusion on the matter, although I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) that it was virtually unanimous on everything else in the report.
	I shall highlight one or two things that cast doubt in our mind. We were a bit mystified about what was the first draft of the report. It was presented to us by Mr. Campbell and the Foreign Secretary that the first draft appeared around 9 or 10 September, which we then debated. However, the idea of the dossier had been around since March. The crucial question is what happened between March and 10 September, not what happened between 10 September and publication. What was the role of people at No. 10 during that time? I imagine it was not published in March because it was not interesting enough. The Foreign Secretary dismisses the 45-minute claim and the uranium, but they were the two things that grabbed the headlines. They got the press interested and gave some credibility to the dossier. One of those claims was so late that it did not even go through the Joint Intelligence Committee assessment procedure. The other came in very late in the day.

Alice Mahon: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Maples: If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I shall not because Front-Bench spokesmen want to start the winding-up speeches.
	We find that Alastair Campbell chaired the meeting at which the draft document was considered in September, even though John Scarlett, who chairs the JIC, was at the meeting. We were told that the document was produced by the JIC, yet its chairman only sits as a member of the committee. Pauline Neville-Jones told us, as did an Australian intelligence agent, that it did not read like a JIC document. It is much more certain than a JIC document. The 1998 document that the Foreign Office put out before Desert Fox is full of qualifications—"may be", "could be", "perhaps". Furthermore, if we compare the body of the text on the 45-minute claim and the chemical and biological weapons claims, it contains many more qualifications than the executive summary, which is more certain. We draw attention to that in our report.
	The Government's behaviour has been bizarre in several respects, including Alastair Campbell deciding that he would, would not and then would appear before the Committee, and the huge smokescreen that was thrown up. The Government have two ways of dealing with the problem. One is to pretend it does not exist. The other is to throw up huge smokescreens by letting off explosions in adjacent areas to distract attention. Alastair Campbell's performance was impressive, but bizarre. This week, there has been the extraordinary episode with Dr. Kelly. Apparently, the Ministry of Defence knew that he had talked to Mr. Gilligan the week before the Foreign Affairs Committee published its report, so why did it delay identifying him and explaining that it knew who had talked to Gilligan until after we published the report? The cynics say that that was because on the Tuesday there was a vote on foundation hospitals, but I suspect that the real reason is that the MOD did not want us to talk to him. It knew that he was not Mr. Gilligan's source for the 45-minute claim—something that we found out in the first 10 minutes of his time with us. There may be paranoia, but such actions certainly feed it. If people suspect that someone is not telling them the truth, and then that person does all sorts of bizarre things, that tends to reinforce their position.
	There are a lot of unanswered questions. The war with the BBC is an extraordinary and exaggerated distraction. The BBC has not accused the Prime Minister of lying—one of its correspondents has said that someone in the Government told him that they were unhappy about the document, which is a fundamentally different thing. The Committee was completely united in its view of the dodgy dossier, which is the most amateurish, irresponsible document that any Government have put out for 100 years or even longer. I am afraid that it has the fingerprints of the Prime Minister's director of communications all over it. It was produced at his request by a unit for which he is responsible. He has tried to lay the blame on a junior Foreign Office official for not including some footnotes, but it is inconceivable that the document would ever have been published if the person responsible for producing it were a senior Foreign Office official. It could only have been produced by an amateur or someone so irresponsible that they could not see that in pursuing the advantage of their political master they were damaging the Government's credibility.
	People who do not have any doubts about the dossier on weapons of mass destruction—and I started off without very many—will wonder, once they realise what had happened with the dodgy dossier and the way in which it was produced, how the first one was produced. We know that Mr. Campbell was chairing the meetings on both. In one, apparently, he is a complete amateur and blithering idiot, but in the other he is an objective professional, which begs what the lawyers would call further and better particulars. The Government have undermined their own credibility with the dodgy dossier, which the Foreign Secretary himself described as a load of Horlicks; the way in which Dr. Kelly was used and abused; and the completely artificial row that Alastair Campbell has got up with the BBC, and that is now the issue.
	I believed the WMD dossier when it was published because it was common sense, considering what UNSCOM and UNMOVIC found. As a witness told us, it would have been irresponsible to come to any conclusion other than that Iraq had a WMD capability. One has increasing doubts while such weapons are not found but, of course, if they are, that will be the end of the argument, and the Government's case will have been comprehensively proved. However, if they are not found, there are only two conclusions that one can come to—either our intelligence was comprehensively wrong or, alternatively, it was misrepresented by the Government.
	The Government's credibility is now at stake. It is in their interests, if they want us to believe them on an issue like this in future, to let Parliament and the public get to the bottom of this. I agree with the Foreign Secretary that a judicial inquiry is an incredibly laborious and unsatisfactory way of doing that, but there is only one alternative. I put it to him that even now, at this late stage, he should let the Foreign Affairs Committee, of which I am a member—[Interruption.] No, he should let it see the draft of the document and the JIC reports going back to March, so we can see who said what before the final document was produced. We should also be allowed to interview the witnesses whom we wanted to see. If we could do that, we could get to the bottom of this. It would not take two years but a couple of months, and would be much more satisfactory than the alternative. If the Foreign Secretary will not let us do that, the only alternative is an independent inquiry of some sort.

Alan Duncan: rose—

Alice Mahon: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Undoubtedly, the vote on 18 March on going to war was the most controversial thing to have happened in my time in the House, and it led to the biggest rebellion among Labour Members. This afternoon, four Labour Back Benchers have been called, all of whom supported our going to war, while a number of us who voted against the war were not called. The public are entitled to hear both sides of the argument, and this certainly smacks of the management of business by a Government who are in deep trouble.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is criticising the Chair directly, but to do so she must table a substantive motion. I can certainly speak for the way in which these arrangements are made, and I can assure her that every possible consideration is taken into account. The Chair may not be perfect in the eyes of all Members in the arrangements that it makes, but it does try to do so fairly and impartially. If the hon. Lady does not think so, she should table an appropriate motion.

Tam Dalyell: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but on a different aspect of it. I am not making a personal complaint. I spoke for four minutes in the previous debate. Surely some consideration should be given not to rebellion, but to dissent. My particular point is that some of those who were lucky enough to be called have evaporated from the debate. Hon. Members who are lucky enough to be called in a short debate have some obligation to the rest of the House to remain.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman and I might share a view on the standard of courtesies currently observed in the House. Mr. Speaker has on occasion tried to remind hon. Members of the ways and practices of the House, and that it is customary to stay for debates. However, it is not a matter of order for the Chair. If the hon. Gentleman looked back on the record of contributions made to all the debates that have taken place on or about this subject, he would see that there has been an attempt by the Chair to ensure the widest possible participation.

Alan Duncan: This is a pretty sad and mucky day for the Government, following a pretty sad and mucky month. Historians will look back with astonishment at the way in which a decision that, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) said, seemed to be brave and courageous, and which was applauded and respected by many, has since deteriorated into a morass of suspicion and recrimination that has seen trust in the Government plummet to unforeseen depths. Perhaps I can say to my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) that the climate of concern that that has engendered cannot be denied or ignored.
	In the context of that collapse of trust, the report, as far as it goes, matters. We welcome it, and the Committee's work. My right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) catalogued in great detail the confusion and inconsistency that have become the hallmark of the Government. He spoke of the September dossier, the February dossier, the weapons of mass destruction, the 45-minutes claim, the supposed uranium from Niger, and Dr. David Kelly's witness, but the Foreign Secretary failed to address any of those matters. We did not hear a single word about any detailed aspect of the report. We had 35 minutes of fog and distraction, and he dwelt only on the idea of setting up a judicial inquiry. That is only a part of the motion.
	If I accused the right hon. Gentleman of taking 45 minutes to launch an argument, he would no doubt find a way of denying it. His tactic at the end was shameful. Saying that a vote for the motion would be a vote to criticise the intelligence services is the last refuge of the scoundrel. It is a disgrace.

Jack Straw: I did not say that, as the record will show. I said that the Opposition's motion represented a lack of confidence in the Intelligence and Security Committee. That is true. I also said that the fact that the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) failed to mention the ISC in the motion or in his speech was an insult to members of that Committee from both sides of the House.

Alan Duncan: The record will show whether the right hon. Gentleman said "services" or "Committee". I thought I heard "services". However, it is not the Committee or the intelligence services that we are criticising. It is perhaps his conduct, and that of Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister and the Government. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes said, the debate is about the nature of the information that the Government had and the way in which that information was handled.
	I say again on the record that we supported the decision to take military action in Iraq. We still think it was right, but we took an enormous amount on trust. The Prime Minister's conduct is now under scrutiny. We have not changed, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire implies. The Prime Minister must be judged by the terms of his arguments and reasoning, and he must be judged against the arguments that he put and the methods that he adopted. That is why the anger is most heated on the Government Benches. Many there feel that the Prime Minister has engaged in chicanery in order to win them round. As the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) implied in her point of order, it was his own side that had to be persuaded.
	I cannot rehearse all the arguments, but let me take one—the subsequent approach to weapons of mass destruction, which follows from the main argument that was put to justify going into Iraq in the first place. It appears from everything that the Government have done that they hoped that after the successful so-called liberation of Iraq, the question of weapons of mass destruction would go away. It was "so-called" in terms of the obvious jubilation and total agreement within Iraq that was predicted by many who went in—which I have to say that the Opposition questioned at the very beginning. The Prime Minister always said, "Oh, we'll definitely find them." In The Spectator, the Secretary of State for Defence said of WMD:
	"Well, that was the reason we gave, which I stand by, for taking military action against Saddam . . . We're confident that weapons of mass destruction are there. We now have to find them."
	Yet, within a few days, the newly appointed Secretary of State for International Development said that they were not a high priority. Of course, the Government are now saying that all that they need to show is that there were some kind of plans or programmes.
	I think that the Committee has done its work very well. Clearly, its work has not finished, and some of the questioning has been very tough and will remain so. We have had a productive debate this afternoon. The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) put his finger on the main question of whether the UK went to war on a flawed prospectus, and whether that prospectus was mishandled by the process of government at the highest level. It is that process that is now under investigation, and we welcome the Liberal Democrats' decision to join us in the Lobby tonight.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) again questioned the 45-minute claim, and my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire spoke very thoughtfully about the coalition between the left-of-centre Prime Minister—or perhaps I should say the so-called left-of-centre Prime Minister—and a right-of-centre President.
	In the speech that we heard at the very end of the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) put his finger on the central issue. What is now of great concern to everybody is that this matter has gone to the heart of the credibility of the Government in so many areas. We took the Prime Minister on trust. Maybe we were ill advised to do so, and our eyes should have been wider open.
	It is not as if we have not voiced our concerns in the past. Perhaps I may even, in a rare moment of self-indulgence, refer to a little-known pamphlet—guess who wrote it. It was published on the day that John Major announced the date of the 1997 election, so it is unique in being the most ignored and overshadowed document in British political history. Do not the Government just wish that their own dossiers were the same?
	The pamphlet states:
	"The evidence is that young people are already beginning to see through the slick imagery of Tony Blair. A recent opinion poll commissioned for . . . a . . . satellite youth channel, found that 56% of 18–25 year-olds regard Blair as 'untrustworthy'. They can sense that there is something not quite right about him."
	Allow me a little more self-indulgence:
	"What are his dominant qualities? The first is a seemingly insatiable vanity, touching on vainglory."—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but there is far too much sedentary comment. He should be allowed to make his speech, and we will then hear a reply from the Minister.

Alan Duncan: Labour Members do not like hearing what I am saying. There is nothing dodgy about this:
	"The second is a simplistic evangelism of the sort that believes that wanting a better world constitutes a serious policy. The third is a ruthlessness which is deployed only for power but never for principle. This is a potent cocktail for tragedy."

Jack Straw: As the hon. Gentleman has accepted that he launched his pamphlet on the day when John Major announced the date of the 1997 general election, will he remind us what effect it had on the result of that election?

Alan Duncan: Sadly, it had no effect, for the reasons that I have explained, but it had another useful paragraph. It said that the Prime Minister's
	"first act would be to appoint a political No. 10 press secretary in order to blur the conventional distinction between official government activity and party political matters."
	It also said that he would
	"extend the system of surrounding senior ministers with political appointees whose prime purpose would be to override the impartiality of civil servants."
	All that I missed out of that wonderful document was the fact that Alastair Campbell would appoint himself effective head of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
	That was a fitting prelude to the conclusions of the report. The ingredients of the tragedy that is unfolding have always been there. We have had the smiles to camera, the slogans, the negative politics, the crafting and the spin. I could live with that—as my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire urged—if it had stopped there, but the trouble with riding so high for so long on the back of those techniques is that the Prime Minister now finds it difficult to distinguish truth from falsity. That is what brings politics into disrepute; we would be fools to pretend otherwise. The effect of this sad episode is that the Prime Minister's credibility is crumbling. His party, rather like Baghdad, is teetering between order and security. The evident decency of most Labour Members has been sorely affronted, prompting two Cabinet resignations and no end of disquiet on the Prime Minister's side of the House. Instead of getting an honest account, we receive groundless rebuttals and a cheesy grin of deceit.
	The question of trust is important enough even on the battleground of our own domestic politics, but as the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife said, it is of far graver significance in the context of potential global events. Institutions are under strain, and concepts and doctrines of military action are in turmoil. The crucial moral foundation needed by any country that might choose to exercise military authority over another is the decency of its own conduct and actions. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary would accept, as a principle for his future actions, that if a country is not trusted by its own people, it will not be trusted in the context of wider global events.
	I urge Labour Members to consider what might happen in the event of a decision to take action against North Korea or Iran in relation to the nuclear programmes that we all believe that they are trying to build up. Given the Government's conduct in this case, and in the absence of any resolution of the concerns that have subsequently arisen, what credibility would they, or any coalition, have? Where would the world end up if a cloud of suspicion were to hang over such judgments in future?
	We can address that problem now, and we can address it conclusively. I urge the House to vote for the motion and to take steps towards rebuilding the trust that befits this country, but which has been inexcusably sullied by the Prime Minister.

Bill Rammell: We have had a constructive and serious debate, and I am pleased that so many Members were able to contribute.
	Let me start with the nub of the motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition—that because of concerns raised over some elements of the intelligence material, there are doubts about the integrity of the Government's decision to take this country to war, and that there should therefore be an independent judicial inquiry. Yet the Foreign Affairs Committee, in a report and conclusions that every Member welcomed, specifically said: first, that Ministers did not mislead Parliament; secondly, that the claims made in the September dossier were in all probability well founded; thirdly, that the threat posed to UK forces was genuinely perceived as a real and present danger; and fourthly—and importantly, given that it is the Committee's response to the key accusation that has been running for weeks—that Alastair Campbell did not play any role in the inclusion of the 45-minute claim in the September dossier.
	The Foreign Affairs Committee, after receiving much evidence and following exhaustive examination and deliberation, effectively rebutted the key allegations and arguments that have been presented today.

Paul Goodman: Its report also stated:
	"We conclude that it is too soon to tell whether the Government's assertions on Iraq's chemical and biological weapons will be borne out."

Bill Rammell: I am confident that the information the Government received and the judgment they made were correct.
	Various hon. Members have commented on the allegations. In opening the debate, the shadow Foreign Secretary referred to the February dossier. I was interested to note that he said that the substance was not wrong but that the process for drawing up the dossier was flawed. The Government have accepted that the way in which it was drawn up was not perfect. However, not one word has been proven inaccurate. The right hon. Gentleman did not challenge the accuracy or the facts in the dossier.

Julian Lewis: Will the Under-Secretary give way?

Bill Rammell: No, I want to make progress.
	I was interested in the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn), who expressed his anxiety about the lack of independence of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), who supported the Government in the vote on going to war, voted against the Government at least once during the deliberations of the Foreign Affairs Committee. [Interruption.] Perhaps I do my hon. Friend an injustice; he voted against the Government more than once. However, my point is that the Select Committee process is independent, robust and capable of getting at the issues.

Andrew MacKinlay: I am not happy about the term, "voted against the Government". If that is the criterion, I provided the majority that insisted on Alastair Campbell coming back. Some of my colleagues did not believe that he should.

Bill Rammell: I stand corrected on the terminology.

Paul Flynn: Will the Under-Secretary give way?

Bill Rammell: No.
	The actions of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock nevertheless demonstrate that the process is robust and independent. I stress that point to the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), the Liberal Democrat spokesman, who claimed that the Intelligence and Security Committee process is flawed because the Government will vet its report. I refer him again to the comments of Lord King, a former Conservative Cabinet Minister, who said that the reports cannot be censored and that the Government cannot delete anything simply because it is embarrassing for them.

Menzies Campbell: Does not the Under-Secretary understand that we must satisfy not ourselves but public opinion? If the Government have nothing to fear, why not have an inquiry that is answerable to the public?

Bill Rammell: As the Foreign Secretary made clear, an independent judicial inquiry would take such a long time that the questions would not be tackled and answered.
	The contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, was interesting. He had a fascinating exchange with the shadow Foreign Secretary. Given the comments of Conservative Front-Bench Members, he rightly asked whether the Conservative party would in future take the stance that the Foreign Affairs Committee should have full access to intelligence information and witnesses. The question was greeted with resounding silence from the shadow Foreign Secretary.

Donald Anderson: I was trying to make a simple point: if shadow Front-Bench Members criticise the Government for not doing something that they themselves refuse to do, that is pure opportunism.

Bill Rammell: Absolutely. I too was trying to make that point, albeit less eloquently than the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Paul Flynn: Will the Under-Secretary give way?

Bill Rammell: No, I shall make progress.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) and for Greenock and Inverclyde (David Cairns) made significant contributions. However, the most impressive and courageous speech was that of the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack). With extraordinary prescience and courage, he pointed out, to put it at its politest, the official Opposition's errors. He rightly argued that, through their actions and tactics, the Conservatives were undermining their credibility by nit-picking—I use his phrase—over matters that do not affect the material issue. It is worth pointing out that he ended his contribution by saying that he was ashamed of his party for making the accusations that it is making today. That took courage, and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.

John Randall: Will the Minister give way?

Bill Rammell: I will make some progress, if I may.
	Two important claims that have been made against the Government are that in key respects, the intelligence material presented in the September dossier, and, by implication, the basis on which we went to war, were false. On behalf of the Government, I flatly reject that allegation. The 45-minute claim came from an established, reliable and long-standing source that the intelligence services judged to be credible.

Paul Flynn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it be appropriate for you to remind the Minister that, according to the courtesy of the House, when a Member is mentioned in a Minister's speech, it is usual to give way to that Member?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order for the Chair. Whether an hon. Member gives way is ultimately a matter for the Member in question.

Bill Rammell: Because of the shortage of time, I want to try to make some progress.
	I flatly reject the allegation about the 45-minute claim.
	Secondly, many hon. Members have referred to the issue of the yellow cake from Niger. We have consistently made it clear that, notwithstanding the information from the International Atomic Energy Agency, other information was available to us. The importance of this and the other accusation has been blown completely out of proportion, in relation to their relevance and importance in the debate that took place in the run-up to the passing of the resolution that committed our troops to action in March.

John Randall: Will the Minister give way?

Bill Rammell: No, I want to make some progress.
	The key issue that was consistently put forward at that time did not relate to this or that piece of intelligence information. The fundamental issue, then and now, is Saddam Hussein's failure to comply with UN Security Council resolution 1441. It was on the basis of that resolution, which was not based on specific intelligence materials, that we took the decision to commit ourselves to military action.
	It is also worth recalling the comments of the Leader of the Opposition on 18 March, when that key vote took place. He took an absolutely justified position. He did not say that he was supporting the Government because of what they had told him about 45 minutes or about yellow cake; he rightly said that he was doing so because, after 12 years of non-compliance, resolution 1441 had given Saddam a final opportunity to comply and he had not taken it. That is why the Leader of the Opposition supported the Government in committing to war. If he has now changed his mind on that fundamental issue, he is entitled to do so, but I think that the House is entitled to know the reasons why the Conservative Opposition have changed their position.

Michael Ancram: The hon. Gentleman keeps making that point, but did he not hear me making it absolutely clear when I opened this debate that we backed the Prime Minister on 18 March because we believed that he was acting in the national interest? That remains our position, and the Minister should stop making these accusations.

Bill Rammell: With respect, the right hon. Gentleman has heard very clearly today from one of his own hon. Friends why that argument has no credibility whatever, because of the nit-picking and the Conservative party's attempt to play politics with this issue.
	I want to deal briefly with the issue of the independent inquiry, which forms a key part of the motion tabled by the Conservative Opposition. If we were to go down that route, it would take at least two years—judging by previous experience—for such an inquiry to reach a conclusion. Is that really the mechanism that we want to use to get to the bottom of these issues? I do not believe that that is what the House wants.

John Randall: Will the Minister give way?

Bill Rammell: No, I want to make some progress.
	Let us consider the detail of the Opposition motion. They claim first that the Foreign Affairs Committee had insufficient time to complete its task. That was a matter for the Committee; it chose the time scale and the deadline. If the Conservative Opposition have a problem with that, they should refer it to the Select Committee.
	Secondly, the Opposition claim that there are concerns about intelligence material. I believe that I have dealt with those concerns, and made it clear that we committed ourselves to the war not because of individual pieces of intelligence but because Saddam had failed to comply with resolution 1441. Nevertheless, there will be a robust and independent inquiry by the Intelligence and Security Committee, which will be able to get to the bottom of those issues.
	Thirdly, the Opposition claim that we need an independent inquiry. As I have said, it would take two years to complete such an inquiry. The ISC could do the same job in an eighth of the time.
	I do not consider the motion credible. It is not worthy of the official Opposition, and certainly not worthy of an Opposition who claim to aspire to government. I urge my colleagues to support the Government amendment and oppose the motion.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
	The House divided: Ayes 200, Noes 299.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House welcomes the Ninth Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the Decision to go to War in Iraq, Session 2002–03, HC 813; notes that substantial oral and written evidence, by and on behalf of the Government, was provided to the Committee; believes that the Intelligence and Security Committee, established by Parliament by statute, is the appropriate body to consider the intelligence relating to Iraq; and notes that this Committee has already begun its inquiry.

Vulnerable Children

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I must advise the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Tim Loughton: I beg to move,
	That this House notes that it is now almost six months since the publication of Lord Laming's report on the Victoria Climbié Inquiry and well over three years since the death of this little girl; further notes that, of the 108 recommendations by Lord Laming, 82 were recommended to be acted upon within six months; condemns the Government for its continued failure to produce the long-awaited Green Paper on Children at Risk, which was originally promised in the spring as the Government's response to many of the systemic failures in child protection highlighted by Lord Laming; is concerned at the continued failure of the Government to address the crisis in recruitment of social worker professionals skilled in child protection who are essential to addressing these failures; regrets that local authorities are unable to implement changes recommended in the Report which would improve the delivery of children's services, because of the delay in the publication of the Government's response; welcomes the creation of the post of a Minister for Children, after six years in government; and calls on the Government to publish the Green Paper immediately as planned in order to secure the confidence and support of all those involved in the protection of vulnerable children.
	This debate should not be happening today. On the penultimate day that the House sits before the summer recess, it has taken an Opposition day debate to force the Government to address the issues of child abuse and safeguarding vulnerable children that were highlighted so graphically and alarmingly by Lord Laming's report into the death of Victoria Climbié. The report was published almost six months ago, and the number of hon. Members remaining in the Chamber shows what a pent-up demand there is for this debate.
	Since 28 January, no Minister has made a further statement to the House and we have been constantly fobbed off with the excuse, "It's all in the Green Paper, just wait a little longer". We are still waiting. Only this month, we were told that we and, more important, vulnerable children will have to wait even longer, at least until the other side of the summer recess, despite the Government's previous undertakings, on a matter of the utmost urgency and relevance for all hon. Members.
	The events and circumstances surrounding the tragic death of Victoria Climbié, set out in Lord Laming's excellent, comprehensive but deeply worrying report, cannot have failed to move everyone in the House and beyond. It is the most harrowing case that I have ever experienced in my six years as a Member. An eight-year-old child was brought to the United Kingdom from the Ivory Coast, supposedly in search of a better life, in the care of a distant relative, only to die 10 months later with 128 injuries, including cigarette burns, weals from beatings with bicycle chains, belts and coat hangers, and hammer blows to her feet. She weighed only 3 stone 10 lbs, with severe muscle wasting and lung, heart and kidney failure after months of systematic abuse. As Lord Laming said, she was
	"the victim of almost unimaginable cruelty".
	Thankfully, the perpetrators of that horrific crime, Marie Therese Kouao and Carl Manning, are currently serving long jail sentences. More worryingly, the serious systemic failures that let down Victoria Climbié have still largely to be addressed.
	In a report of 405 pages with 108 recommendations, in an inquiry that took 279 witness statements and sifted through 4,000 documents, Herbert Laming insisted that changes to the system were urgently required. He identified 46 recommendations that could be implemented within three months and 36 that could and should be implemented within six months. The rest could be implemented within two years. Those recommendations, as he put it,
	"cannot be deferred to some bright tomorrow".
	He made the grave finding:
	"Not one of the agencies empowered by Parliament to protect children in positions similar to Victoria's—funded from the public purse—emerge from this inquiry with much credit. The suffering and death of Victoria was a gross failure of the system and was inexcusable . . . bad practice can be expensive."
	Haringey police admitted:
	"In the A-Z of an investigation, that investigation did not even get to B."
	The then Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) assured us:
	"If some good is to come out of this tragedy, lasting change must come out of it too."—[Official Report, 28 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 741.]
	The Opposition have offered unqualified support to address a situation that brings shame on our society, with whatever measures are needed, and quickly, and have expressed a determination that this report—the latest of 30 reports on the deaths of children known to social services in as many years—should be different.
	Despite all that, since 28 January, no Minister has come to the House to report on the progress of the measures being taken in the wake of Lord Laming's report. No Government time has been allocated to debate child protection measures in the Chamber. The Green Paper on children at risk, promised much earlier in the spring as the Government's formal response to the Laming inquiry, and almost "sexed up" as the universal panacea for everything that is wrong in the whole issue of child protection, has still not appeared. It has been shunted off until some unspecified date in the autumn at the earliest.
	The tragedy is that the events surrounding Victoria Climbié's death were not isolated. There have been numerous other high-profile cases of children dying at the hands of parents or carers: for example, the case of six-year-old Lauren Wright from Norfolk; the case of two-year-old Ainlee Walker from Newham; and the case in my own constituency of four-year-old John Smith, who died on Christmas eve 1999 with 54 bruises, bite marks and burns that he suffered at the hands of his foster carers. We know that, on average, 80 children, mostly under the age of one, die in such circumstances every year, and that most of the perpetrators go unpunished.
	The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children survey of 366 such cases found that in 225 no further action was taken against the suspected perpetrators, and 99 convictions were secured, but few of them were for the charge of murder—they were mostly for the lesser charge of cruelty. The indictment rate for such people has been falling drastically.
	As hon. Members know, there is a particular problem with the legal loophole of proving joint enterprise that still needs to be resolved despite the efforts of hon. Members on both sides of the House to amend Home Office Bills to that effect.
	It is not only the extreme cases that end in death about which we need to be concerned. Many more problems associated with vulnerable children urgently need action from the Government. For example, a quarter of all rape victims in the United Kingdom are children and those are just the ones that we know about. Despite the good work that is being done as a result of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which we all supported, there are still about 55,000 looked-after children and 30,000 children are on the child protection register, with 600 being added every week. Those children are 50 times more likely than the average child to end up in prison, 60 times more likely to become homeless and 88 times more likely to be involved in drug abuse.

Kevin Brennan: The hon. Gentleman acknowledged the Adoption and Children Act. Will he also acknowledge the fact that the Adoption Forum has decided to wind up because the Government have fulfilled its agenda, including the passage of that Act and the creation of the post of Minister for Children?

Tim Loughton: Indeed. I pay tribute to the excellent work that members of that forum did. It is regrettable in many ways that it has been wound up, but it is a sign that much work has been done and I pay tribute to the progress that has been made as a result of the 2002 Act on which we both spent many hours, days and weeks—in fact, more than a year.
	It is also estimated that three out of every five children who suffer abuse have mothers who experience domestic violence from their partners, that 19 in every 10,000 children under the age of 18 are receiving support services from local authorities—in inner London, that figure rises to as many as 43 in every 10,000—and one in 10 have mental health problems. It is estimated that about 450,000 children are the victims of bullying at school. We have recently seen too many examples of children being driven to suicide as a result of those and other pressures. Furthermore, 130,000 children call ChildLine every year.
	We also have a crisis with the children and family court system. A recent report revealed that children at risk of abuse are waiting up to 15 weeks in some parts of the country for court hearings on their future because of a shortage of guardians to represent them after the Government's bungled reorganisation resulted in the loss of many skilled professionals in that area of child protection.
	In London, where about 190 children are waiting for hearings to decide whether they should be taken into care, vulnerable children often remain with the people who pose a threat to them because the system is overloaded and taking too long at a crucial and sensitive time. As the Minister recently revealed in a written answer, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service is dealing with about 12,245 public law cases concerned with care, adoption and guardianship.
	There are also serious concerns about the number of children who are held in prison, which has doubled from 1,328 in 1992 to 2,609 last year. The provisions of child welfare considerations under the Children Act 1989 do not extend a duty to prison authorities.
	There are concerns about the continuation of private fostering despite the strong recommendations of the Utting report, echoed by Lord Laming, which affects more than 10,000 children, primarily from west Africa whence Victoria Climbié came. There are concerns about the continued delay in the national service framework for children, which now seems to have been put back well into 2004.
	All in all, the health and welfare of our children does not appear to have been a priority under this Government and the delay in the Green Paper, which is intended as a discussion document and not firm Government proposals, can only add to that impression. As the all-party parliamentary group on children put it in its annual review,
	"In general children are, and have been ignored in the area of health policy. But children should be a focus because nothing matters more to families than the health, welfare and future success of their children."
	As Lucy Thorpe, policy director of the NSPCC put it,
	"Children are ¼ of the population and for too long their health needs, from a child-centred perspective, have come a poor second to those of adults."
	What the Government have been good at, however, is coming up with new schemes, bodies and titles, supposedly to deal with child welfare: the children and young people's unit, area child protection committees, sure start, home start, children's fund, children's trusts, children's centres, the neighbourhood support fund, the parenting fund, Connexions, quality protects, the neighbourhood nurseries initiative, children's strategic partnership bodies, the national service framework for children—or lack of it—CAFCASS, the children's tsar, and so on. I am sure that each of those has merits, but taken together, they represent a bombardment of local initiatives from central Government. They are not joined up, often work in silos and, as Lord Laming has said, often poach staff from one another.
	Conversely, what the Government are particularly bad at producing is the increase in the number of social workers skilled in child protection who can carry out those initiatives and look out for children on the ground. The Government always claim that they have no central information on recruitment or retention rates. According to Library figures, the social worker vacancy rate is well above 10 per cent. and much higher for child social workers, and things are much worse in London and the south-east.
	Many experienced professionals are demoralised and leaving the profession. The figures conceal the real problems of a heavy reliance on agency staff and a big turnover in staff. A Unison survey revealed that 60 per cent. of departments said that, even if all the vacant posts were filled, there would still not be enough social workers to manage the current case loads—and those case loads will increase, with the extra duties being placed on local authorities, for example, with responsibilities under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, and so on.
	Clearly, there are many problems with the welfare of children that the Government urgently need to address, and we might have expected them to be addressed urgently after the then Secretary of State's encouraging response to the Laming report.

Andrew Selous: My hon. Friend mentions social worker vacancies. Does he agree that it behoves all of us, particularly the press, to act with great responsibility when social workers are brought into the limelight for having done something wrong? Although we would all want such matters to be fully and properly investigated, we must bear in mind the effect on those thinking of joining the profession if the downside seems huge and the upside is ignored.

Tim Loughton: I could not agree more. No one is interested in reading the story about the plane that landed safely. The press only like to come up with the bad news stories that pillory social workers, who are given a bad reputation. The vast majority of them do a very good job in increasingly difficult circumstances, and we all have a duty to improve the image. There has been too much finger-pointing, which is most unhelpful.
	There are many questions still to be answered. In his response to the Laming report, my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) posed a series of practical questions to clarify the Government's intentions. He asked how the House could monitor progress on the Laming report in a truly transparent way. How will communications improve in practice, beyond just setting up new structures? What role is envisaged for the greater use of information sharing in early detection? What review of the Data Protection Act 1998 will the Government undertake to ensure that nothing stands in the way proper information sharing? To what extent does the Secretary of State believe that the current classification of children in need of protection militates against appropriate protection? What changes will be made? What has the Secretary of State learned from the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, which places a positive duty of care on parents to promote children's well-being? Should sections 27 and 47 of the Children Act 1989 be amended to include the police and general practitioners as agencies that should support local authorities in carrying out their duties in relation to children in need of protection?
	Many other hon. Members have asked questions as well about the future of children's trusts and whether the Secretary of State agrees that all the agencies involved in area child protection committees should have a statutory duty to take part in them. In answer to all those points and more, which the Secretary of State welcomed, he pointed to the forthcoming Green Paper to provide the comprehensive answers. I say again that we are still waiting, so I and other hon. Members have been tabling a number of questions to elicit answers from the Government.
	For example, earlier in the year, I asked the Secretary of State
	"how many recommendations by Lord Laming in his report on Victoria Climbié shown as achievable within three months have been initiated; which have not".
	The response from the Minister, who is present today in a new role as the Minister for Industry and the Regions, was:
	"There are 46 recommendations in the Victoria Climbié Inquiry which are . . . achievable within three months . . . the checklist of good practice recommendations sent to police, health and social services . . . were also included in the self-audit tools which were issued subsequently by the Commission for Health Improvement and the Social Services Inspectorate. The remaining . . . recommendations will be covered in our substantive response to the report, to be published shortly as part of the Green Paper on Children at Risk."—[Official Report, 3 June 2003; Vol. 406, c. 65–66W.]
	Sending out a checklist is not the same as acting on the recommendations and being able to see how the system has changed as a result. What auditing mechanism is in place to make sure that local authorities have acted on the good practice recommendations? Will compliance, for example, be a component of social services star ratings in future?
	Earlier in the year, I asked which area child protection committees are complying with the guidance from the Laming report. I received the answer:
	"The information requested is not held centrally."—[Official Report, 10 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 96W.]
	I asked which recommendations the Government intended to implement. The Government's answer was:
	"we will make our substantive response to the report as part of the Green Paper on Children at Risk, which will be published in the spring."—[Official Report, 3 March 2003; Vol. 400, c. 882W.]
	We do not therefore know how much of the Laming report the Government agree with and want to implement. Which recommendations do they not intend to adopt?
	I asked:
	"what communications to GPs regarding procedures for dealing with children suspected of suffering harm at the hands of their carers have been issued"?
	I received the answer:
	"There were no communications directly to general practitioners regarding procedures for dealing with children suspected of suffering harm at the hands of their carers".—[Official Report, 27 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 701W.]
	I asked,
	"what discussions he has had with social services authorities in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast about the dangers to children coming to the UK to live without their parents."—[Official Report, 25 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 516W.]
	The answer was, "None". One might have expected the Government to address the source of the problem in Victoria Climbié's case—not least because of the high incidence of child trafficking from that part of the world and private fostering involving children from west Africa—either through dealing with international social services or directly with those Governments. The answer, however, is that nothing has happened.
	I asked the Minister,
	"what assessment he has made of the compatibility of the confidentiality considerations contained in the Data Protection Act . . . and the sharing of information about vulnerable children between agencies recommended by Lord Laming."
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring mentioned, that was a key consideration. Surprise, surprise, the answer was that the Government
	"will publish a full response to the report in the spring."—[Official Report, 24 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 31W.]
	I therefore asked what estimate the Secretary of State had made of
	"the cost of the implementation of recommendations in the Laming report for each local authority".
	We were told:
	"This good practice . . . is covered within the budgets already allocated"—
	but, surprise, surprise—
	"The response to the Inquiry, covering all the other recommendations, will be made as part of the Green Paper on Children at Risk."—[Official Report, 3 June 2003; Vol. 405, c. 368W.]
	Never in the history of Parliament, it would appear, has so much been promised in a single Green Paper.
	Local authorities are in limbo as to what resources to use for the Laming recommendations, let alone which will take priority, and we all know that without the resources and the professional staff, the Laming report will not be implemented in anything like the comprehensive way that is necessary if it is to make a real difference.

Clive Efford: Those of us who were on social services committees during the last Conservative Government will not recognise anything that the hon. Gentleman is saying. As a member of a social services committee that went through the Kimberley Carlisle inquiry, I know that the Government did not fund a single recommendation that came out of it. Local authorities were forced to fund that from their existing budgets. For his information, the local authority was also forced to pay for the entire inquiry out of that budget.

Tim Loughton: Labour Members may like to play the usual game of saying that it is all the fault of the Conservative party.

Clive Efford: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: Let me give an answer first. In the 1990s, we had nothing like the same haemorrhaging of professional, skilled social workers—the people with the experience of dealing with these cases day in, day out—demoralised by having too many agency workers filling places and having extra responsibilities placed on them without the extra resources to go with it. We do not therefore need to take any lessons from the Labour party.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Tim Loughton: I will give way in a minute, if I can make a little more progress.
	In many respects, therefore, an awful lot is riding on this Green Paper. Its non-appearance is not simply an unfortunate oversight in parliamentary procedure—something for political debate, relevant only to the confines and niceties of this Chamber—but is having seriously detrimental effects on professionals involved in child protection, and, inevitably, on the welfare of children themselves. The lack of progress is causing chaos for other Bills as well, with Bill teams increasingly saying that legislation depends on issues still to be raised in the Green Paper.

Debra Shipley: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that measures such as my Protection of Children Act 1999 show that there has been a constructive approach from all parts of the House on child protection? I especially pay tribute to Opposition Members for their work on my Act. Will he outline his party's opinion on the Laming report and tell us how it would contribute constructively to the report's recommendations?

Tim Loughton: Gladly. We published a response on 28 January. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring outlined a series of criteria that we want and on which we largely agree with Lord Laming. We also held a summit on child health and protection issues at Westminster on the day that the Laming report came out, which brought together a whole host of professionals. We have made many suggestions on how we should move forward from the report. We have been waiting for the Green Paper so that we may make our suggestions formally in response to the Government's consultation.
	Let us listen to what other people have said about the problems caused by the lack of progress. The Local Government Association said:
	"The Local Government Association . . . is disappointed and frustrated at the further delay to the Green Paper on Children at Risk. Five months after Lord Laming's report into Victoria Climbie's tragic death, progress should have been made on introducing measures to address the failings that Laming identified. Councils should not still be waiting for the government to give an indication of the changes to be proposed. Too many councils are in limbo, ambitious about improving their services in line with Laming's recommendations but afraid to implement changes without knowing what is around the corner."
	Voluntary bodies such as the NSPCC have voiced their frustration at being constantly fobbed off about the timing of the Green Paper. Doctors need clear guidance and training. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said:
	"Implementing Laming advice will mean a lot of extra work. We will need perhaps 30 trainers across the country to roll out the programme to . . . 6000 college members in the UK".
	On the point about information sharing, it says:
	"All reports into child abuse say it is essential to share information—with other doctors, with social services, with the police. But the laws on confidentiality state that we must not share this information"—
	although that is a crucial point that Laming identified. Doctors point out that we need a rational system for classifying abuse cases because, as their representatives say:
	"At the moment child protection is seen as black or white. Either there is a child protection issue or there is not."
	Many questions and problems need urgently to be addressed. There is a lot riding on this illusory Green Paper and there is no excuse for further delay. Victoria Climbié was murdered three and a half years ago. The trial of her killers ended two and half years ago. The proceedings of Lord Laming's inquiry opened more than two years ago. Numerous studies on child protection have been commissioned, such as the "Safeguarding Children" report that was published last autumn and dealt with arrangements for area child protection committees.
	On 30 October 2002, the Prime Minister promised that a Green Paper would be published early in 2003 on the whole issue of children at risk and that the problem would be dealt with across the whole of government. However, there has been great confusion about which Department has taken ownership of the Green Paper and the Departments that have inputted information; I gather that it has largely been under the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. On 28 January, the former Secretary of State for Health said:
	"We will make our substantive response to the report as part of the Green Paper on children at risk which we intend to publish this spring."—[Official Report, 28 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 737.]
	The spring has come and gone. Secretaries of State have come and gone. A new Minister for Children has come. We welcome the creation of the post of Minister for Children if it will genuinely join up Government policy on children across Departments. We have long called for that as an alternative to the situation under the previous nominal Minister with responsibility for children, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham). He was also the Home Office Minister with responsibility for prisons, so that sent out all the wrong signals about the way in which the Government deal with children.
	The hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) made a terrible start as the first holder of the important, sensitive and much-trumpeted post of Minister for Children. She has spent her first four weeks on the defensive for her track record as the leader of Islington council when she presided over one of the worst cases of systematic child sexual abuse and neglect in a local authority, despite the strong warnings that she was personally given by senior social workers.
	Yet perhaps we should not be surprised when we see that senior officers in other Labour-run London councils, who all had responsibility for departments that should have looked after Victoria Climbié, went on to greater things. One became the head of the Commission for Racial Equality; one was head-hunted by Hackney council; one council leader went to the Lords and is a member of the Greater London Authority. If we add to that the track record of the hon. Member for Barking for putting the considerations of political correctness before the common-sense welfare of children, personally launching a booklet about banning skipping ropes, musical chairs and GCSE grades below C, we have to ask whether this important appointment is not already fatally flawed and one of the biggest let-downs of the botched reshuffle.
	Although the creation of the role was widely welcomed by all sorts of organisations involved with children and by us, the hon. Lady's appointment was greeted with deafening silence. Rather than spending her first month defending her record, claiming that her mistakes make her ideally placed for this new role and trying to sell us the line that the Green Paper will again be delayed because the Prime Minister wants to be personally involved in its launch, which she says is an unparalleled commitment—it is not, because he took ownership of the review on adoption, for example—she should be answering questions about what her new Department will cover.
	Will the new Department or the Department of Health be responsible for children and adolescent mental health services? Will the hon. Lady be responsible for the even more delayed national service framework for children? When will we get serious and comprehensive solutions to the issues raised by Lord Laming? When will responsibility for child protection be properly joined up at local level, and which individual will ultimately take responsibility for drawing all the relevant agencies together locally? Where, and when, will the buck stop? When will we have properly informed assessments of need for individual children, properly monitored, resourced and implemented? When does the hon. Lady expect to have established a framework for children at risk which is all about outcomes, not structures, and which is child-centred, not concentrated on the adult agenda?
	Those are the issues that need addressing urgently. Instead, it would appear that the hon. Lady's sole achievement today is an undertaking that she will not in fact be the Minister for Children but the Minister for Children, Young People and Families. We fear that the Green Paper will be further delayed by the new Minister being sidelined and sidetracked by having to defend herself, now that the truth is coming out about her failure to protect vulnerable children in Islington.
	The Laming report must be different. It must herald a radical shake-up of the system. As the former Secretary of State for Health promised:
	"In future services for children must be centred not around the interests of any organisation, but around the interests of the child. Nothing—no existing organisation, no existing structure—should be allowed to stand in the way."—[Official Report, 28 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 741.]
	We agree wholeheartedly with that now, as we did then. But changing ministerial titles, giving feeble excuses for delay about prime ministerial interests and issuing checklists about how many interdepartmental committees need to meet do not save children at risk and are now standing in the way of protecting those children.
	The real test for any new structures must be measured not by how many bulletins and meetings are generated, but by how many children are saved from cruelty and abuse. The Green Paper has been promised as a crucial element in that process, and must be produced and promoted without further delay. To repeat Lord Laming, the
	"recommendations cannot be deferred to some bright tomorrow."

DEFERRED DIVISIONS

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have now to announce the result of the Divisions deferred from a previous day.
	On the motion on Immigration, the Ayes were 376, the Noes were 52, so the motion was agreed to.
	On the motion on Social Security, the Ayes were 270, the Noes were 52, so the motion was agreed to.
	[The Division Lists are published at the end of today's debates.]

Charles Clarke: I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	"welcomes the Government's commitment to children's services as evidenced by the appointment of the Minister of State for Children; congratulates the Government on its Quality Protects initiative, which provided £885 million to improve children's social services; supports the action the Government is taking to legislate to establish an independent inspectorate to inspect local authority children's services and social care provided by the private and voluntary sector; notes that the Government, local authorities and other statutory bodies are already taking further action to improve services for children, in the light of the Victoria Climbié Inquiry Report; congratulates the Government and local services on the announcement of the 35 Children's Trusts Pathfinders on 10th July; and looks forward to the publication of the Green Paper on children in the autumn."
	We welcome the debate. I shall begin by addressing aspects of common ground before exploring points of difference. We all welcome Lord Laming's report and its recommendations. We also all regret that the time scale is so long, although the reasons for that are understandable. Victoria Climbié tragically died on 25 February 2000. Two individuals were convicted of her murder on 12 January 2001; Lord Laming's inquiry was established on 20 April 2001; the evidence was finished on 31 July 2002; and the inquiry reported on 28 January 2003. The period is too long. I agree with the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) that that is a matter of concern which we need to address.
	The truth is that we have a long history of sad inquiries. Since about 1980, there have been more than 50 inquiries into child deaths and child abuse, of which five, including the Laming inquiry, were statutory inquiries. The others were serious case reviews of high-profile cases, including some in my county. As an aside, I pay tribute to Conservative Secretaries of State during that time who tried to address those matters in a principled way. That is how we should address politicians who tackle such problems; we should not cast slurs.
	Equally, there have been inquiry reports—17 in the same period—into the abuse of children in residential care. We all know that there is too long a history of a children's social services profession that has been blown about by difficult sequences of appalling tragedies and their consequent inquiries. Sometimes the profession has been accused of intervening too much, and at other times of intervening too little. It has been difficult to get stability in those circumstances. I agree with the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) that getting a sense of proportion and balance is extremely difficult but also extremely important. So another aspect of common ground is the need for stability and confidence in the profession so that people can proceed with their professional duties in a positive and strong way that deals with the interests of the child.
	The third element of common ground, on which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham concluded, is linked to the second. The child's welfare must be at the centre of everything that we do. We are not interested in the welfare of particular professions, institutions or whatever.

Joan Humble: The Secretary of State rightly starts by referring to social services, and many earlier reports concentrated on that agency. A key aspect of the Victoria Climbié report, however, is that the recommendations cover not just social services, but a raft of other agencies—the health service, the police, voluntary organisations and the local church—which shows that we all have a responsibility to make child protection a priority. The message must go out that all statutory agencies and all individuals should look out for the needs of children.

Charles Clarke: I could not agree more. My hon. Friend puts that well. I only add to her list the responsibility of schools and the education profession. Her remarks are a key part of what I am about to say about steps that have been taken to deal with the recommendations of the Laming inquiry.

Patrick McLoughlin: In the past, the Secretary of State for Health would probably have been at the Dispatch Box to respond to such a debate, as some of the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) implied. Do the changes mean that future funding for children's services through social services will come via the Department for Education and Skills as opposed to other Departments? With the Secretary of State's known love of local education authorities, how will he ensure that the money is available to front-line services?

Charles Clarke: The answer to the first question is yes. We are also bringing together the children's services at the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department to get the coherence that Lord Laming recommended. That is another aspect of common ground. The House knows that Lord Laming recommended that a Cabinet member be responsible for the services. I am that Cabinet member in those circumstances and I take that responsibility extremely seriously.
	I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raises the concern in the social services world that schools might gobble up resources that would otherwise go to social services—I put it more strongly than he did. I am happy to give an assurance that that will not happen. Whether through the ring fencing that exists in, for example, the quality protects arrangements or through other means, we will continue to fund children's services at current or better levels. The coherence of the arrangements that Lord Laming commended ought to bring together different funding streams to deliver support for children that is better than previous arrangements.

David Wright: I think that we will hear quite a bit of knocking of local authorities in our debate, but we ought to give credit where credit is due. Has my right hon. Friend seen the excellent initiative in Telford and Wrekin, which uses new technology, including a traffic light system, to track child safety issues? All the agencies are working together so that they can pinpoint whether children are moving into a vulnerable situation, then intervene. We should back local authorities that are doing such excellent work.

Charles Clarke: I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I was going to come to the question of children's trusts and co-operation. I have not seen what is taking place in Telford and the Wrekin, but I am aware of it and have been briefed on it. It illustrates the important role of local government and the key role of integration, as my hon. Friend said.

Debra Shipley: I welcome both the appointment of a Minister for Children and the fact that my right hon. Friend is the Cabinet link for the Government, but who has key overarching responsibility at local level for bringing together all local services, including the police, health and social services?

Charles Clarke: My hon. Friend has a tremendous record in this area. I shall not tell her to wait for the Green Paper, but if she will permit me, I shall come to that issue later.
	There is common ground, and it is important to take a co-ordinated approach and have a Minister for Children. I am glad that the Opposition motion praises and supports that development. However, I thought that the aside of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham about delay was unfair, especially as the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard)—she has a distinguished record on these matters and I am delighted to see her in the Chamber—was cited in the Eastern Daily Press, which usually, but not always, reports things accurately, as welcoming the proposal. According to the newspaper, she
	"welcomed the joining-up of responsibilities, saying it was something she had proposed in 1999."
	I do not know whether she was reported accurately, but no doubt she will tell me.

Gillian Shephard: I am grateful to be able to put the record straight. I did indeed publish a pamphlet in 1999 proposing exactly that, but I shall not bore the House with that now or, if I am called to speak, later. The right hon. Gentleman may not be here if I am called, so I should like to pay tribute to him for his support for the work of the all-party group of Norfolk MPs on integration, accountability and transparency. I hope to hear more about those proposals in his remarks.

Charles Clarke: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who has confirmed that we have worked together in Norfolk, as well as in other areas—there is important common ground among political parties about many of the points that we are debating. I am delighted that the Opposition support the development in the machinery of government, but I thought that the reference to the time that we had taken to set up a ministerial post was a little unfair, given that no progress was made on that during their time in office.
	I had not intended to address this but, in light of the highly personalised remarks by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, I should like to place on record my view that the Prime Minister made an inspired and strong choice in the appointment of my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) as Minister for Children. She has a long and distinguished record in this area, and she will put together the cross-governmental approaches that are important in making improvements a reality. My cordial advice to the Opposition is that if they decide to personalise the issue they will be going down a blind alley instead of debating the important issues on which we share common ground.

Lorna Fitzsimons: Everyone in the House attaches importance to Lord Laming's report and the protection of the most vulnerable children, so I hope that we do not obfuscate our responsibilities by playing a game of personality politics.

Charles Clarke: I very much agree. There is common ground and a genuine record. That is why I paid tribute to Conservative politicians who had held responsibility in this area. They tried to carry out their responsibilities properly, as colleagues in my party have also sought to do.
	My final point of common ground is on the need for co-ordinated provision locally. My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) asked about local responsibility. We believe that the children's trust approach is important, with the key responsibilities held by education, social, health, police and other services, as she described. The central relationship is that between schools and children's social services. The extended schools approach that we have adopted has been widely welcomed and is constructive. My hon. Friend the Minister for Children recently announced 35 pathfinder children's trusts to go down that course.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge also asked the important question who bears final responsibility. I confess to the House that there is something of a dilemma in that regard. Of the existing office holders, there are three alternative candidates: the director of social services, the director of education and the chief executive. Strong representations have been made to me and to my hon. Friend the Minister for Children that we need to be careful about saying that for all local authorities there is one solution—one of those three candidates—in every situation. There are different local circumstances in each area.
	The Green Paper will not say that one of those three people should operate in that way. We will say that there must be local determination, but the key element is that one person must be chosen to bear overall responsibility. The way in which that is done will be set out in the Green Paper. In a moment, I shall deal with the points made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, but I acknowledge my hon. Friend's point that there must be one person who is responsible. However, I will not say that that should always be the director of education, the director of social services or whatever.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Charles Clarke: I shall give way to a sequence of hon. Members and then respond.

Joan Humble: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way a second time. When considering the arrangements for the official in charge, will he ensure that appropriate structures are in place? When joint working works well, it often does so because of the personalities involved. When it fails, it is because people committed to doing the work are not there. Although a different approach may be taken in different areas, there must be something in writing to ensure that the scheme does not fail.

Charles Clarke: There must be not only something in writing, as my hon. Friend describes, and I agree with what she says, but clear responsibility under statute to place the responsibility in the way described. In addition to the different natures of different local authorities with different circumstances, I would add the factor that my hon. Friend identifies: different personalities. For the state centrally to stipulate that ultimate responsibility should always rest with one particular role is not necessarily the right way to proceed. That is an important aspect of the Green Paper consultation that will take place.

Tim Loughton: I want to add to the consensus on that important point, which I mentioned when I said that the buck must stop with somebody. I agree that it should be left to local determination and horses for courses as to who that person is. Can the Secretary of State give an undertaking that whether it is the director of education, the director of social services or a newly created director of children's services, it should be a person at chief executive level or, at a minimum, at director level with whom the buck stops?

Charles Clarke: I agree. I am prepared to give the assurance that the Green Paper will contain that commitment. As Lord Laming identified in his report, it is critical that there should be a senior level personal responsibility for these matters. However well intentioned and committed individuals lower in the hierarchy may be, the buck must stop at a senior level.

Andrew Lansley: Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), the key recommendation of the Laming report is not simply, as the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) made clear, that we and all the agencies have a responsibility, but that we should know who is in charge and who is accountable. In recommendation 7, Herbert Laming made it clear that he wanted each local authority within six months to have a management board responsible for these matters and chaired by the local authority chief executive, so that there was no question even of a director-level appointment being distracted by other priorities. Will the Secretary of State accept recommendation 7 or, by implication, not accept it?

Charles Clarke: The hon. Gentleman was correct to use the word "accountable", as the key to this matter is an accountability that is not only formal, but genuine in terms of the individual in question feeling that they are responsible. I shall come in a moment to the Laming recommendations, including the one that he mentioned. The fact is that the most important thing that we can achieve in that regard is a clear individual senior board-level responsibility in every local authority, and that is what we will achieve.
	The areas of common ground that I have sought to set out represent important common ground across the House generally. On at least three important issues in the motion, there are differences that I hope are not simply about party political point scoring or game playing. The first point of difference is the suggestion that the recruitment of social work professionals has not been proceeded with. That point is set out in the motion and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham addressed it in his speech. I rebut absolutely the allegation that we have not made progress in this area. Strong steps have been taken and will continue to be taken.
	In October 2001, the release of £1.5 million was announced for the first ever social work national recruitment and retention campaign. Over the 12 months to October 2002, the number of applications for social work training increased by at least 6.5 per cent., so an increase was coming through. Since then, new specific grants to councils have been established for human resources development. The grants are of £9.5 million in 2003–04, and there will be £25 million in training grants in 2004–05. Those grants will lead to more appropriate use of staff, ensuring that highly trained workers are used only where their skills are essential. We aim to raise the number of people applying for social worker training by 5,000 by 2005–06, to inform the public about what social workers and social care workers do and make existing social workers and social care workers realise that their work is valued. In the 18 months after the campaign was launched, there were more than 50,000 calls to the helpline and hits on the website.
	I rebut the charge made by the hon. Gentleman. Of course, I will always acknowledge that we need continually to do better and that important recruitment and retention issues remain, and those will be addressed in the Green Paper. However, the charge in the motion tabled in the name of the Leader of the Opposition is false and I rebut it entirely.

Tim Loughton: I remember the speech made by the Secretary of State for Health at the Local Government Association conference. In announcing that £1.5 million would be provided for a training programme, he pointed the finger of blame at many of the social services employees, councillors and representatives who were present at the event. What the Secretary of State cannot tell us is how many people have been recruited as social workers. Many people may have rung the hotline or applied for training places, but how many are ending up as social workers in key positions? His own Department cannot produce those figures, but it is they that matter.

Charles Clarke: Those figures form part of the figures that matter, but only part. The number of people going into training, the quality of the courses and so on are also important. That is why the fact that we are training people is important in achieving precisely the end to which the hon. Gentleman refers.
	The most important allegation that the hon. Gentleman made, which I rebut and is a point of difference between us, is the suggestion that we have done absolutely nothing to implement the Laming report over this period. That too is untrue. [Interruption.] He is demurring, but his motion says that the House should note
	"that, of the 108 recommendations by Lord Laming, 82 were recommended to be acted upon within six months".
	It goes on to say that we have not been doing the work that we need to do in those areas. Does he accept that we are implementing Laming?

Tim Loughton: The point is that we do not know, as we have no evidence. That is what we are waiting for. It was promised that the Green Paper would provide the evidence about what the Government were doing, choosing not to take up from the Laming report and so on. That is why the motion is there—we do not know and we are waiting for the evidence.

Charles Clarke: I shall come to the Green Paper, but I want to answer the hon. Gentleman's helpful question by telling him what we are doing to implement the Laming report.
	On self-audits and inspection activity, Ministers set out, on the day of publication of the Climbié inquiry report, a checklist covering 56 of its recommendations on basic good practice. That was followed up with self-audit tools whereby social services, health services and the police were asked to guarantee that those recommendations were put in place within three months. My Department has received all the responses, which are broadly positive and indicate that most services are following the basic good practice recommendations of the Laming report. Those who are not will be followed up by the relevant inspectorate. The responses are being analysed fully to provide the information that the hon. Gentleman wants. We have been proceeding in accordance with Laming and shall continue to do so.
	As regards the services in north London, the health, police and social services inspectorates are undertaking joint monitoring of the local services that failed Victoria Climbié. Haringey was inspected in March 2003, Brent was inspected in May 2003, and Ealing and Enfield will be inspected in July 2003. Full reports of the findings for those four boroughs will be published in due course and followed up as necessary in each area to ensure that local services are satisfactory and have addressed the various issues raised by Lord Laming.
	All the relevant inspectorates have reviewed their planned individual and joint inspection activity. The chief inspectors concerned have met to consider the outcome of those reviews and to plan for the next triennial joint chief inspectors' children's safeguards report. There will be an integrated inspections framework for children and a lead inspectorate for children's services—namely, the Office for Standards in Education, or Ofsted—to assess joint working and the achievement of outcomes and standards.

Paul Burstow: I want to clarify the Secretary of State's intentions on inspectorates. Is he saying that the lead responsibility for co-ordinating joint inspections of children's services will be held by Ofsted, and not by the Commission for Social Care Inspection?

Charles Clarke: I am saying that the lead responsibility will be with Ofsted and that it will be an integrated approach. The Green Paper will set out the precise process by which we get to that point.
	On training, a review is being undertaken involving all the relevant bodies in health, social care, education and the police. The initial stage of that review identified current standards for inter-agency training. The second stage, which is to report by the end of this September, will make recommendations on the changes that might be implemented to improve inter-agency training. The Government are in the process of commissioning training materials to accompany the booklet, "What To Do If You're Worried A Child Is Being Abused". Social work training has recently undergone reform, with the new three-year social work degree from September 2003, new funding of £7 million in 2003–04 for practice learning to support individual students, and the creation of learning resource centres and skills laboratories.
	On guidance, on 19 May the then Health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), launched a clear and concise booklet for people working with children and families—"What To Do If You're Worried A Child Is Being Abused". It is designed to be clearer than existing guidance in order to help people get to grips with the best-practice approach for safeguarding children. By publishing a single set of guidelines for all those working with children and families, we intend to eliminate any need for local bodies to produce their own. That is in direct response to Lord Laming's concern about the amount of out-of-date local guidance that he found in the services involved with Victoria Climbié. We will also update the guidance on the Children Act 1989 to make it shorter and clearer.

Debra Shipley: I welcome the guidance, but is my right hon. Friend aware that it often does not reach people on the ground? Can he give me an assurance that sampling will take place across the country to find out whether the guidance is being disseminated and acted upon?

Charles Clarke: I agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, Lord Laming dealt with adequacy and the extent to which it informed the way in which professionals operate. I can give the assurances that my hon. Friend seeks: we are simplifying the guidance and ensuring that it reaches every professional through training, and that we will test whether we are succeeding through the statistical techniques that she mentioned.

Paul Burstow: I want to emphasise a question that Conservative Members have already asked and that I raised during the statement on the Laming inquiry: when does the Secretary of State expect to issue the overdue and much-needed guidance on sharing confidential information between agencies? The lack of clarity causes grave anxiety for many agencies and gets in the way of good, integrated childcare practice.

Charles Clarke: I cannot give a firm date, but I shall ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Children whether she can provide further information when she responds to the debate.
	I do not want to spend much time considering children's trusts, because we dealt with the point in earlier exchanges. However, many recommendations in Lord Laming's report relate to the lack of co-ordination and communication between the relevant agencies. We believe that children's trusts are the way forward; they are already being established to help tackle such issues. They are intended to bring together some or all of the services that local education authorities, social services, health or criminal justice services commission and/or provide for children. They may also include other services for children up to the age of 19. Local authorities will be the lead organisations. We believe that such integration is the way forward, so we held a bidding process that led to the announcement of 35 pathfinder projects to establish the best way in which to proceed.
	Let us consider the national service framework and the way in which hospitals deal with children who need protection. All health and social services bodies should work to common standards, and on 10 April 2003 the Government published the first part of the national service framework for children, young people and maternity services, including a standard for hospital services. The full framework, to be published in 2004, will set standards for child protection services against which health and social care organisations will be inspected. We have a 10-year programme for improving health and social care services for children and young people. The standard takes account of Lord Laming's recommendations that apply to children in hospital.

Andrew Selous: Will the Secretary of State tell us his views on the balance between prevention and cure, especially in the context of couple stability and parenting courses? What are his views on mainstreaming some of that activity?

Charles Clarke: My thinking was pre-echoed, if such a scientific concept exists, by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble). We must move from saying that social workers are the only people responsible for children's protection and security to a position whereby a wide range of professionals and their communities believe that that is part of their overall responsibility. We believe that the different professional structures, funding and bidding regimes have not fostered that necessary sense of mutual and collective responsibility. The Green Paper will be centred on tackling that point. It will stress that social workers alone cannot bear all the responsibility. The teams and approaches and the collaborations between that profession and others are vital.

David Kidney: Although it is understandable that today's focus is on intervention when things go wrong, does my right hon. Friend accept that investment in promoting positive parenting means that things will go right most of time?

Charles Clarke: Absolutely. One of the aspects of which the Government can be most proud is the sure start programme, which has tried to make my hon. Friend's point central. If I can use jargon, mainstreaming the sure start approach is important for everything that we must try to achieve. Many Labour colleagues are keen for that to happen and I hope that that applies to colleagues in other parties.
	A further recommendation by Lord Laming referred to the review of private fostering. We have noted the recommendation in his report that the law on the registration of private foster carers should be reviewed. Consequently, the Social Care Institute for Excellence was commissioned to undertake a study into the effectiveness of child-minding registration and its implications for private fostering. The report is due for publication shortly and it will inform our conclusions.
	So, I reject the charge that we have not been active enough in acting on Lord Laming's recommendations. My colleagues in the Department of Health and in my own Department who have taken on these responsibilities have been energetic and vigilant in seeking to make progress on the approach set out by Lord Laming, and I emphasise that they will continue to be so.

Andrew Lansley: Given what the Secretary of State has just said, is he in a position to say how many of the 82 recommendations in Herbert Laming's report that were intended to be implemented within six months have been so implemented? Perhaps the Secretary of State can also now answer my question on recommendation 7.

Charles Clarke: I am advised by my hon. Friend the Minister for Children that about 83 of the 108 recommendations have been partially or fully implemented at this stage. I have tried to set out as clearly as I can that we have made major progress.
	The final point of difference—an important one—is the suggestion that the delay in the publication of the Green Paper on children is a key problem. The Opposition put that point at the core of their motion, and it was also a central part of the speech made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. The delay is of one parliamentary week. We shall publish the Green Paper in the week in which the House comes back after the recess.
	We have delayed the publication by one parliamentary week for two reasons. First, the recommendations of the Green Paper—I acknowledge that it is a Green Paper and not a White Paper—are very far-reaching in a great many respects. We want to ensure that, when we publish it, we take full account of the changes in the machinery of government to which I have referred, and of the informal conversations that we have held with interested organisations in the field, such as professionals and representatives of local government. The exchange that we had a few moments ago about the appropriate person to be the named individual with the right level of responsibility illustrates how difficult and delicate that issue is. I want to ensure that the Green Paper reflects those dilemmas in the best way possible.
	The first reason for the delay is, therefore, that the Green Paper is a far-reaching document, and I want to ensure that I get it right. We also want to take full account of the machinery of government changes that we have made, and of the initial responses that we have received.

Tim Loughton: Before the Secretary of State tries to convince us that this is a delay of only one parliamentary week, will he acknowledge that that delay will involve children not getting for two months the attention from the Green Paper that we were promised? This is not the first delay but the second. The Prime Minister promised us last October—a promise that the Secretary of State reiterated in January—that the Green Paper would be published in the spring, which is now some months behind us.

Charles Clarke: I do not accept that for a second. It might be an illusion that is current in the Conservative party. Publishing a Green Paper is not the same as doing something. To publish a Green Paper is to get to the policy decisions that we have to take. The protections that we are applying and the work that we are doing are going on in precisely the way that I have described, and they would go on regardless of when or in what way the Green Paper was published. I have outlined in some detail the work that is going on. The suggestion that professional social workers in social services departments are stopping doing their work of protecting the people in their care because they are waiting for the publication of a Green Paper is simply wrong. Equally, the legislation that we prefer is in place.

Tim Loughton: Listen to the Local Government Association.

Charles Clarke: I listen to the LGA in a number of ways, but I do not accept its assessment of every issue.
	The second reason for the delay is that the Prime Minister associates himself with this initiative, as we made clear at the time. That is because the seriousness and scale of it will require commitment right across government to ensure that it will work. We wanted to make sure that that could be the case.
	It is always possible to score political points on these questions, although I advise the Opposition against so doing.

Eleanor Laing: That is what we are here for.

Charles Clarke: The hon. Lady says that we are here to score political points.

Eleanor Laing: What we as an Opposition are here for is to hold the Government to account. It is right for us to ask questions—lots of questions—which should be answered by a Government who are not doing enough.

Charles Clarke: I agree with every word that the hon. Lady has said, although it is an interesting elaboration of what she said about scoring political points. At our last education Question Time, when my hon. Friend the Minister for Children was present, there was not a single question from the Opposition about how we would implement our proposals. By all means let them ask questions, but they should ask about the substance of what we are doing and how we are doing it, rather than scoring cheap political points. The hon. Lady has been scoring them ever since my hon. Friend's appointment. She is wrong to do so; she should talk about the substance.
	What is important about the Green Paper is what it says and the policies that it sets out. This historic step builds on what the Government have already achieved with, for instance, provision for children aged three and four and the sure start programme, but for the first time allows us to make a major advance in providing for the welfare and protection of children. My party and I will be happy to be judged on the basis of the Green Paper, and the stability that I believe it will offer the entire profession. I hope that Members will support the amendment.

Paul Burstow: First, I should like to record the fact that I act as a parliamentary ambassador for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and I am grateful for the opportunity of doing so.
	I congratulate the Conservatives on choosing this as the subject of one of their Opposition day debates, for it is important. It is only sad that, since the publication of the Laming report through a statement in the House on 28 January, we have not had a debate in Government time that would have allowed issues raised by Members on both sides to be put to the relevant Minister. It would have been useful to learn the extent to which 83 of the 108 Laming recommendations, to which the Secretary of State referred, had been met. It would be helpful if Ministers felt able to write to Members who have taken an interest today about what progress is being made.
	What we should be saying is that what counts is the protection of vulnerable children from harm, and giving them an opportunity to thrive and develop. We are glad that the Government have drawn together all the threads of their policy on children in a single Minister and a single Department. This should not be about personalities; it should be about the substance of policy, and whether that policy turns into practice that makes a real difference to the lives of not just vulnerable children, but every child in the country. That should be the litmus test against which we judge this or any other Government.
	As the Secretary of State said, Victoria Climbié died on 25 February 2000. It was a tragic death, and we need only turn the pages of the Laming report to see that it was a preventable death. Poor practice on the part of social workers, police and medical staff let Victoria slip through the net. As others have said, the key feature of the Laming report was its acknowledgement that the problems could not be laid just at the door of social workers and social services, and that responsibility was shared by a range of agencies. This was, perhaps, the first time that that had been acknowledged.
	It is to the Government's shame that, three and a half years later, the country is still waiting for a definitive response to Laming. It is a damning indictment that we have not had an opportunity during Government time—there has been time during the months that have elapsed since the statement—to have an Adjournment debate that would inform the Government's own thinking during the development of their Green Paper. That, surely, would have been a useful part of the consultation process.
	As we have heard today, the
	"long-awaited Green Paper on Children at Risk"
	has already been delayed, and has now been postponed again. In early November last year we were told that the Green Paper would be published in early 2003. That was later refined to spring 2003. By January this year, the talk was that publication was imminent—in the next few weeks. Then everything went quiet. The Laming report was published and we learned that the Green Paper would contain the Government's response to Laming's 108 recommendations. In May we were told that the Green Paper would be published "any time now". By mid-June, the message was that it would published before the House rose on 17 July. It is not here, and we now hear from the Secretary of State that it will be delayed by only one week.

Charles Clarke: One parliamentary week.

Paul Burstow: Well, of course "parliamentary" is the important word. While that might be a semi-persuasive argument for some of the right hon. Gentleman's Back Benchers, it would be difficult to try to spin that argument to those outside the House who have been waiting and waiting for the definitive response. That is not a credible argument to answer the accusation that the report has been delayed. Now we learn that one of the reasons is that the Prime Minister's diary is too full before the summer recess and, therefore, it seems that the needs of vulnerable children are to take second place to the Prime Minister's need for a good news story.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: That is a disgusting thing to say.

Paul Burstow: It is disgusting, and that is why I made the point. If that is why publication has been delayed, it is outrageous.
	The Secretary of State has told us that the Green Paper will be a pivotal and essential document, and that that is why the Government are taking time to review it carefully and ensure that it fits in with all the other changes of which he spoke. If it is such a substantive change, how can he then say that it is only a Green Paper that will not make much difference? That would seem to be the conclusion that we should draw from his concluding remarks. When the Minister replies to the debate, perhaps she can tell us what will happen in those weeks that do not exist in parliamentary terms—the summer recess. Will she take the draft report with her on her summer holidays to revise it and rewrite it—yet again? It has already been many months in production.
	The Conservative motion rightly points to the Government's failure to address the issue of social work recruitment. Last August, the chief inspector of social services commented on the impact of staffing shortages. She said:
	"In the councils inspected an average 3 per cent. of cases of children on the child protection register were not allocated and an average 5 per cent. of looked after children were not allocated to a social worker. From a sample of case files, doubts were raised about arrangements to protect one in eight children. Inspectors took the view that the welfare of children was adequately safeguarded in only 21 out of 32 councils. A particular area of concern was staff recruitment which was insufficiently robust to ensure adequate safeguards."
	Those percentages sound small, but the detail shows that for looked-after children alone, that adds up to 4,000 children without an advocate, or even a safety net. If the arrangements for safeguarding children are poor, that means question marks over the safety of a further 11,250 children.
	The latest figures from the Local Government Association paint a sorry picture of staff issues. For example, high vacancy rates stand now at 9.8 per cent. and turnover rates are even higher, at 15.3 per cent. Those figures mask marked regional variations, with the south-east, south-west and London having particular difficulties. As a result, social services departments have to place great reliance on agency staff.
	According to the latest figures published, there are some 376,000 children in need in England alone. They are some of the most vulnerable in our society. Ensuring that each and every one of those children, and their families, gets the right support, at the right time and in the right place, is a complex and demanding job. Its success hinges on the actions of a host of different agencies, each with its own values, personalities, priorities, performance targets, skills and resources.
	The need to weld those agencies together to ensure that they deliver a seamless response, tailored to the needs of children and their families is obvious in theory—we have debated the theory for years and years—but it often does not turn out right in practice. Fine judgments have to be made about hard cases, in which none of the options is perfect. Decisions have to be taken with limited opportunity for reflection and limited access to specialist advice and consultation. Child deaths can, and do, occur when the professionals involved—from health, social care, education or the police—are inexperienced, poorly trained, overloaded and under-supervised. In the context of the Laming findings, it seems that they are also poorly led by those at the top of the organisations for which they work.
	The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) intervened earlier to note that the language used in this House and in the media about the quality of social work in this country denigrates and devalues that work. He said that it puts people off going into the profession. I agree with him, and with the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). We need to raise the status of social work and make working in it an attractive proposition.
	For that reason, I was surprised when I read last September's Community Care magazine interview with the Leader of the Opposition. He chose to talk about how social workers always take time off for courses, as though that were a problem. Yet one of the key issues to emerge from inquires into child deaths has been the inadequacy of training across professions that would allow them to work more effectively together. That was a sad message for the right hon. Gentleman to give to social workers.
	The death of Victoria Climbié at the hands of her aunt and her aunt's boyfriend was a tragedy, but it was not an isolated one. From the death of Maria Colwell in 1973 to the present day, many of the issues to emerge from the inquires have stayed the same. Unfortunately, however, not every child registers on the child protection radar screen. Most abuse in this country goes unreported. Every week, one to two children die following abuse or neglect.
	Home Office figures show clearly that child homicide rates have not fallen for 25 years or more. We have cut child deaths on our roads, and reduced the risk of disease and illness in children, but child death rates as a result of neglect or abuse have remained unchanged. There is still no system in this country for the systematic follow-up of child deaths, nor one that gives a clear picture of both individual cases and the flow of cases. We need a clear picture so that we can use it to develop policy and, more importantly, practice on the ground. As a result of the lack of a clear picture, the full extent of child death in this country remains largely hidden.
	Last year's report from the UN committee on the rights of the child expressed alarm at the lack of a co-ordinated strategy to reduce child deaths. When the Green Paper is finally published in one parliamentary week's time, I hope that it will set out a strategy for bearing down on the problem of child deaths in this country. Indeed, I hope that it will set out clearly how the Government will translate the principles enshrined in the UN convention on the rights of the child into policy, law and practice.
	One reform that is long overdue, and which has aroused press speculation in recent days, is the establishment of a children's rights commissioner for England. The Select Committee on Health and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have very recently recommended that such an office be set up, and I recently introduced a private Member's Bill on the same subject. It is an issue that hon. Members of all parties have championed and campaigned for for many years.
	A children's commissioner would be a guardian of the human rights of all children, not just those within the care system. A children's commissioner would not be the manager of child protection services, or of a Government welfare or quality assurance programme. I hope that the Green Paper will contain the good news that the post will be part of the Government's programme, and that the Government will learn the lessons both from what has happened in Wales already and from the recently established commissioner post in Northern Ireland.
	So far, the Government have focused more narrowly on the rights of children in regulated care services. The children's rights director is a valuable post, but it is limited. Indeed, the new health and social care commissions mean that the director's writ will not extend to children in the NHS, private health care or hospices. That is an omission that I hope that the Green Paper can address, so that the children's rights director has a right to be consulted by the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection. There is no such provision at the moment.
	The Conservative motion is also right to point to the difficulties that delaying the Green Paper's publication has caused. I intervened earlier on the Secretary of State to raise recommendation 16 of Lord Laming's report, which states:
	"The Government should issue guidance on the Data Protection Act 1998, the Human Rights Act 1998, and common law rules on confidentiality. The Government should issue guidance as and when these impact on the sharing of information between professional groups in circumstances where there are concerns about the welfare of children and families."
	Surely, that is a critical recommendation. The ability to pass information freely but confidentially between agencies to protect the welfare of children is vital, yet confusion still reigns, so I hope that when the Minister for Children comes to the Dispatch Box she will bring clarity where currently there is none.
	I hope, too, that, in her reply to the debate, the hon. Lady can clear up confusion on another point. The Children's Act annual report, published last week, refers to the Munby judgment. The Prison Service and the Home Office had argued that the Act did not apply in full to prisons. The court held that it did and required that guidance be changed to reflect that. The annual report states that the Department of Health is working with the Home Office and others to consider the implications of the judgment. Can the Minister tell us whether the Department of Health will still undertake that task or is that another of the issues that she will take forward? It would be useful to know to whom one should address questions about the outcome of the Government's review.
	I raise the issue because, last year, the UN committee on the rights of the child expressed serious concern about the Government's approach to the high and increasing number of children in custody at earlier ages for lesser offences. In addition, I am concerned about the increasing use of restraint in custody. Figures in the UN report highlight the fact that, in two years, 296 children sustained injuries following restraint and control in prison.
	The joint chief inspectors' report "Safeguarding Children" revealed that the weaknesses in the Government's current arrangements for the protection of young children are letting children suffer serious harm, or even die, in custody. The report states:
	"An analysis of surveys undertaken of young people in Young Offenders Institutions revealed that 24 per cent. reported incidents of assault by other young people, 14 per cent. reported that they felt unsafe some of the time and six per cent. felt unsafe often. In one Young Offenders Institution, there were over 700 reported incidents of injuries to young people over an eight-month period."
	That is a huge number, but I am concerned not only about injuries but also about deaths.
	Since 1997, 93 young people have committed suicide while in custody. Detention and training orders seem to have led to an increase in jail sentences, apparently in the mistaken belief that that would result in more rehabilitation. Many children in custody should not have been put there in the first place. Half of them are casualties of an under-resourced and over-pressured child protection system. So far, the Government have refused to lift their reservation on the UN convention in respect of the detention of children in adult prisons. The UK locks up more children than any European country, which is a scandal.
	The Government amendment talks a lot about more resources, but, interestingly, not much about outcomes and delivery. Can the Minister be more specific about outcomes and delivery? On resources and the budgetary pressures faced by local authorities, 60 per cent. of the overspend on social services budgets is accounted for by children's services. How will the Government address the constant pressure, year after year, on resources that were intended for adult social services but are being redirected to fund children's services? Extra resources are having to be brought in due to inadequate funding of such services.
	Last year, the Government published the Wanless report on health care funding. Throughout that welcome report, it was recognised that health and social care were two sides of the same coin. The report recommended that further work should be carried out on social care funding. Can the Government tell the House whether such work will be commissioned? As well as the important Green Paper that we are expecting in due course, we need some indication of the long-term funding that will achieve the step change that the Government and the Liberal Democrats want to see.
	The Secretary of State referred to children's trusts. On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I want to make it clear that we support the pathfinder project on children's trusts. We welcome an approach that Governments do not always follow—learning from experimentation before rolling out a particular model. That is undoubtedly the right way forward. We especially welcome the fact that it will offer an opportunity to explore and learn about the benefits of integration in the commissioning of health and social care—albeit only for children, but it is a good step in the right direction. Liberal Democrats can certainly make common cause with the Government on that point.
	The Secretary of State mentioned the national service framework and said that the first standard was published in April. A second standard has already been published, but it now appears that the rest of it will be published on a piecemeal basis. Will the Minister tell us at the end of the debate whether all the other standards will be published at some point next year? Is it to be a part-work, like some of those dreary publications produced by national publishers, or will the Government produce one single document?
	Will the Minister tell us whether the social exclusion unit report, which was due out last October, will be subsumed within the Green Paper? That is not clear. We understood that a paper was to be published last year, but it has not been published.
	There are some concerns about the Green Paper, which have been echoed by a number of the professional organisations and others outside this place, in particular the worry that the Government may in some way confuse accountability with management and that, as a result of the Green Paper, there will be more proposals for organisational change—functional change—rather than cultural change throughout these organisations, which is what we really need.
	When the Secretary of State answered a question earlier, he acknowledged that that should be a matter for local determination. It should not be for this place or for Ministers to say that local authorities will have a specific person to take on the lead role at a local level, but that person should be at a senior enough level to have the clout and ability to get things done. That is the key point that I hope will come out of all the recommendations in the Green Paper.
	However, there needs to be a clear duty not only on local authorities but on all the agencies that work at a local level, to come to the table, contribute and play their part in child protection and children's services. That does not happen at present. Area child protection committees are not on a statutory basis—some are good, some are excellent and some are totally useless. We need to get that right. I hope that the Green Paper will deal with that and that the Minister will be able to tell us whether that is what is intended for the future.
	Reference has been made to the need to integrate services. Undoubtedly, that is a key part of how we can make a difference to all children and to those who may be at risk or who are vulnerable to harm and abuse. However, we need more than a whole-systems approach; we need a whole-society approach. That is fundamental. We all have a responsibility for the safety and well-being of our children and that needs to be a key part of any strategy that emerges from this or any other Government. We need an approach to children—all children—that values them, does not stigmatise them, and is ambitious for all of them and protective of those who need extra support.
	I have referred several times to the UN convention on the rights of the child, which I hope will be a key part of the document that is to come out later this year. Those rights are critical to how policy and practice should be shaped: the right to life and maximum development, the right to protection from torture and inhumane or degrading treatment, and the right that all actions involving children should have their best interests as the primary consideration. Those are clear rights that provide clear purpose and direction for the development of public policy and practice.
	Child protection is not the preserve of any single profession. Local government may have its lead responsibility in that area, but if its partners in health and elsewhere are not fully engaged it cannot succeed.
	In the past 30 years, public policy has failed to reduce the number of child deaths in this country. Too many of the milestones in the development of child protection policy and practice in those years have been the gravestones of dead children. We can all agree on the goals, and many of those that the Secretary of State set out are the common ground on which we should build a good policy that makes a real difference for all our children, not just a few of them.

Shaun Woodward: I welcome this debate, as do all hon. Members. It is terribly important. As someone who has been the deputy chairman of ChildLine and remains a trustee, I know that the debate will be keenly followed there and throughout all the children's charities.
	My only regret is that I suspect that while this may be one of the most important debates that we have, the pretext for having it was probably not so well intended. For us to debate this subject on a motion that probably has a lot more to do with personality politics does no credit to the House and little credit to the Conservative party. The debate has provided an opportunity—some would describe it as opportunism—to attack the Minister. It has provided an opportunity for the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) to talk about his party's belief in arguing for a Minister for Children.
	Well, I have a little experience of the Conservative party, and I do not remember the creation of a Minister for Children being party policy at the 1997 general election. Indeed, before a small incident led to my departure from that political party, I remember making a speech at the Social Market Foundation in 1999 in which I argued for a Minister for Children, and my then boss, who should perhaps remain nameless, told me that creating a Minister for Children would certainly not be a policy of the Conservative party. So we are talking about short-term memories here. It ill behoves Conservative Members to remind of us such things, because we can remember quite a lot as well—and I will have a little pleasure in remembering one or two things during my remarks.
	I looked at the press releases from the Leader of the Opposition about the appointment of my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) to her Front-Bench job. It is unfortunate that they were so personality-driven. The House could achieve extraordinary consensus on this issue and a great deal for children in this country, but that requires us to lay aside the kind of differences that have given rise to the debate today.
	The fact of the matter is that there is no magic fix, and if we are not careful, we set ourselves up for failure for one very simple reason: whatever the Green Paper may produce in a few weeks' time, it will not end child abuse or child deaths by the end of the year. Since 1973, there have been 35 reports on child protection. Since 1945, there have been 70 reports on severe child abuse. Not one of those reports—some were produced under Conservative Governments, supported by the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing)—ended child abuse or the deaths of children in terrible circumstances. We must be sensible about the idea that the Green Paper is somehow a piece of magic that will end child abuse—it will not—but it may make things better.
	The excellent recent report by the Select Committee on Health very sensibly considers some of Lord Laming's proposals, and it says that we need to be careful; we could get things wrong. No hon. Member on either side of the House wants us to get anything wrong in respect of protecting vulnerable children. The idea seems to be that, somehow, all we need to do is produce the Green Paper as quickly as possible and all will be well, but the opposite could be true; we could make mistakes, and I hope that we all want to avoid doing so.
	ChildLine—an organisation with which I have been involved for a long time—counsels hundreds of thousands of kids every year. Last year alone, we counselled nearly 30,000 children who were in need of protection. Mercifully, that protection was given, but in some cases things go wrong and a child slips through the net, with one agency or another. That is very clearly what happened with Victoria Climbié.
	There are many lessons for all of us to learn. They are not just about social workers, but about the culture in which we operate. Again, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman, rightly said that we should be very careful about laying the blame on social workers. Of course we should not do that—but again, if we are not careful, the idea may be that the Green Paper will solve all those problems.
	Victoria Climbié was not murdered by a social worker. She was not murdered by a Member of Parliament. She was murdered by people who were supposed to be looking after her. That culture goes to the heart of things. Interestingly, Lord Laming's report and the Select Committee on Health report cite the cultural background of such things and what we learnt from the Stephen Lawrence case. There are cultural issues to do with colour, race and ethnicity, and those issues must also be considered. Such problems will not be solved by referring them to one department. With all due respect to my hon. Friend the Minister for Children, even if she were the best thing since sliced bread—as I am sure she is—the truth is that she will not solve all the problems either. We might just make them a bit better.
	At ChildLine, over nearly 20 years, we have learned a great deal about what needs to be done. One of the things that we learned about was the importance of tackling bullying, which was a terribly important issue. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Epping Forest, who, with me, when I was in the Conservative party, recognised the damage that something like section 28 did to young people. She knew that there was a culture of bullying with it. It is a difficult issue, because it drives some division within her party. None the less, she was ahead of her party on the issue and she rightly campaigned for reform. To hear her colleague, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham talking about campaigning on children's issues—I seem to remember that he was not exactly in the forefront in campaigning for the reform of section 28—beggars belief. Given the motion that we are debating today, I can only expect that, if the Opposition continue in this direction, they will shortly be tabling a motion complaining about the Government's failure to reform section 28 quickly enough. If they do so, I will welcome it, because it will be great if reform can be driven further and more quickly on these matters, which is important.
	Bullying remains a problem. We do not solve it simply by introducing a bullying code into schools. It is not solved overnight. Only a week or so ago, in Merseyside, a young lad of 11 died, having been bullied at school. That is an appalling, unnecessary death. God forbid, there will probably be more. But if we work together, we might make the climate better.
	Another big issue on which the hon. Member for Epping Forest might like to take the lead with her party would be, for example, the ending of the defence of reasonable chastisement. Sadly, at the moment, the Government clearly feel that they need to be cautious on this issue. Yet domestic violence is no longer tolerated, and we are not happy to see two men coming out of the pub on a Friday night thumping the heck out of each other—we think that they should be arrested and punished. We do not tolerate men and women hitting each other inside the home—we think that something should be done about it. Again, the Government will be taking steps over the next few months to do more to deal with domestic violence. Yet, bizarrely, we find ourselves saying that it is okay to thump a child.
	This seems to me to create an extraordinary climate. What we are saying to people—I know that this will not make me very popular with the Daily Mail, but I have not been popular with that paper for a number of years now—is that we are sanctioning violence. We need to tackle a culture of violence which, at its most ruthless end, has dire consequences. Again, I ask the Daily Mail please not to make a travesty of what I am saying. I am not suggesting that ordinary parents who give their child a clip behind the ear are indulging in anything that relates to what happened to Victoria Climbié. Of course I am not saying that. But it helps to create a culture in which we can somehow tolerate violence.
	Again, the hon. Member for Epping Forest may want to take the lead in her party on these issues, because it seems to me that continuing to sanction with the defence of reasonable chastisement the hitting of children is something that, sooner or later, the House will be brave enough to deal with. In a similar way that, I suppose, people look back on wife beating now, in 100 years they will look back and say how ridiculous it was that, in 2003, we had a society that still allowed children to be hit.
	Like many Members, I am sure, I have four children, and I have once in my life hit one of them. Tom was four years old, and he had shut the door on his younger sister's fingers and had really hurt her. I did not know what to do, and, like lots of parents, I am afraid, I lost it. I gave him quite a hard smack. The story is legendary in our family—the kids say, "Do you remember the time Daddy smacked Tom?" I thought to myself afterwards, that if he was shocked, I was much more shocked. It was not a particularly hard hit, but it shocked me that I could lose my temper and hit a child whom I loved so much. I realised, of course, that the next time, to achieve any effect, I would have to hit him a bit harder, and then, perhaps, a bit harder. Probably, what ends up happening is what happened to me when I was a kid, which was that I started getting hit with implements. People might ask whether that is the reason why I am as I am—it did not do me much good and I am sure that it would not do my kids any good.
	I pay tribute to the work of Esther Rantzen and charities such as ChildLine for taking a brave stance and recognising ahead of their time that smacking ultimately contributes to a violent culture, which is a problem that we must tackle. That is another issue on which the hon. Member for Epping Forest may lead her party.
	We should appreciate the steps that have been taken regarding the Laming report. The announcement of the establishment of children's trusts last week is important. Again, there is no magic involved. We are at the beginning of a process that will hopefully allow us to do more.
	I want to refer several important pieces of information from ChildLine to my hon. Friend the Minister because they arise from listening to children. First, excellent research done by the charity shows that children aged over 16 are often passed from one authority to the other, and that no authority is prepared to take responsibility for them. It is important to address that. Secondly, getting help for children and young people, which is a serious issue, appears to be more difficult in February and March—toward the end of the financial year—than at other times. That is an important consideration when we make decisions on resources.
	Thirdly, little support is available for homeless 16 and 17-year-olds who live on the streets to enable them to try to escape from abusive home situations.
	Fourthly, there is a serious concern about the lack of safe houses for young people throughout the United Kingdom. Such facilities do not provide long-term solutions for young people but they are needed to offer respite and assessment for vulnerable young people.
	ChildLine has identified a further problem from its night service. Children who ring at night in need of help often find it difficult to get help because social services are more overstretched at that time. That fact is not a condemnation of social services or social workers. I tell Conservative Members—their motion is pretty condemning of the Government—that the only years since the early 1990s between which the number of social workers went down were 1995 and 1996. The number has increased in every other year. It is difficult to accept a Conservative motion that condemns the Government for doing insufficient to protect children given that the number of social workers reduced under the Conservative Government. I say that only to illustrate the danger of getting into point scoring. The right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Virginia Bottomley), the former Secretary of State for Health, is sitting on the Conservative Benches and I know that she cares passionately about working for children. There is a danger of getting into petty political point scoring when we could do more than that, which is why I regret the fact that the debate has been personalised around my hon. Friend the Minister for Children.
	The Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member, has rightly argued for a children's commissioner for England, as have hon. Members. Children need not only a Minister but an independent voice that is above party politics so that important points may be made regardless of the political party in power. Children are too important for us to play politics with. I hope that the delay to the Green Paper will give my hon. Friend the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister the opportunity to announce that the children of England will finally have a children's commissioner when the Green Paper is published.

Gillian Shephard: I am really pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this extremely important debate, not least because it is clear that no hon. Member could fail to be moved by the fate of Victoria Climbié. No one could fail to be impatient for action some six months after the publication of the distinguished and comprehensive inquiry into her death. As the Secretary of State said, I also have a constituency interest. Several hon. Members will know that I had the opportunity to make a presentation to the Climbié inquiry on behalf of an all-party group of Norfolk MPs. I must place on record my gratitude to the Secretary of State for giving his unreserved support to our conclusions when he was in his former post. The presentation detailed some of the lessons that were drawn from the harrowing case of my six-year-old constituent Lauren Wright, who died after months of abuse at the hands of her stepmother on 6 May 2000—about the same time as Victoria.
	I shall be very brief as others wish to speak. I shall give the bare facts about the circumstances of Lauren's death and then, equally briefly, lay out some of the conclusions that the all-party group drew from that sad affair. It was characterised, like the case of Victoria, by a series of errors, muddles, communications failures and general professional sloppiness—the same sort of failures that, all too often, are revealed by the cases of the 80 or so children who die each year in this country from abuse or neglect.
	Lauren Wright, my constituent, died from a blow to her abdomen, with extreme bruising all over her body, on 6 May 2000, two days before the date of the case conference that Norfolk social services had finally organised to discuss her plight. From her birth she had been known to Hertfordshire social services. She was known to Norfolk social services for the three years before her death. For the 16 months before she died she was at primary school—a two-teacher, 29-pupil primary school in which she could hardly get lost. During that time, aged six, she lost four stone in weight. She was seen by a community paediatrician and a general practitioner, and again by a paediatrician just a couple of months before she died. She was visited by social workers. Too late they alerted the area child protection committee, and too late the case conference was finally convened for a date after her death.
	The real concerns about this case are that Lauren's treatment at the hands of her stepmother, who was eventually convicted of her manslaughter, took place in public, observed by the local community, and under the supervision of doctors, social workers and teachers. Trial evidence revealed that the stepmother was seen hitting the child and screaming abuse at her; that she fed her pepper sandwiches; that she put bugs from the garden in her food; and that she turned off the taps so tightly that the child could not get a drink of water.
	Lauren's class teacher said at the trial that she saw marks on Lauren
	"lots of times, often she was covered with lots of small bruises and with major bruises about once a month. These included black eyes, bruising on her face and scratches across her back."
	As I said, at the time of her death, she weighed little more than two stone. In the words of her head teacher, her physical deterioration had been
	"apparent for at least five months before she died."
	Of course, Lauren was killed by her stepmother. The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Woodward) rightly makes it clear that not all blame can be placed at the door of professionals, and that is definitely so. The stepmother was clearly very plausible. The trial was told that she had an IQ of 78. She certainly deceived doctors, teacher and social workers, and Lauren died as a result. But from this sad case we see illustrated a number of the same failures shown in the Victoria Climbié case.
	As Lord Laming said in the introduction to his report:
	"I recognise that those who take on the work of protecting children at risk of deliberate harm face a tough and challenging task. Staff doing this work need a combination of professional skills and personal qualities, not the least of which are persistence and courage."
	I agree. We should not underestimate the difficulty and sensitivity of the work undertaken by social workers, police, medical professionals and teachers. But of course when decisions and judgments are so difficult, procedures are more, not less, important. As Lord Laming said about the Victoria Climbié case:
	"Even after listening to all the evidence, I remain amazed that nobody in any of the key agencies had the presence of mind to follow what are relatively straightforward procedures on how to respond to a child about whom there is concern of deliberate harm."
	I agree with that too, in the case of Lauren. The investigations that I undertook on behalf of the Norfolk all-party group of MPs leave little room for doubt.
	In a letter to MPs, the director of Norfolk social services, Mr. David Wright, admitted
	"There were failings in other agencies but I believe that our Department should have been able to intervene to save her".
	It was only after a great deal of pressure from Norfolk MPs, the public and the media that the Norfolk health authority agreed to mount an independent review of its role in Lauren's case. The review's findings were shattering. The Eastern Daily Press reported on 26 March 2002 that there had been
	"a series of errors and poor NHS management which culminated in a failure to safeguard the little girl."
	There was also the role of the education service. The Minister will want to take careful note, given her background in the Education Department. Lauren attended a 29-pupil school. She presented at school with bruising. She lost four stone in weight. She was listless and tired. Despite all that, as far as we know her teachers did not report to the education welfare service concerns that they might have had about her health, as they were required to do under local education authority guidelines. I say "as far as we know" because the Norfolk local education authority declined to make public any inquiries it might have made in the wake of Lauren's death. She was therefore failed by no fewer than four chief officers and professionals in social services, the health service and the education service, just as Victoria Climbié was failed by a multiplicity of professions.
	The all-party group suggested to the Climbié inquiry that the following issues should be tackled. The first was accountability, which the Secretary of State touched on in his remarks. The Norfolk MPs concluded that a statutory duty should be placed on the chief executive of each local authority to convene the area child protection committee in cases of repeated child abuse and neglect, and that he or she should have a statutory duty to ensure that appropriate action is taken. If it is not, the chief executive should ensure that disciplinary action follows. We thought that a similar duty should also be placed on health authority chief executives. To ensure that professional staff are not unduly put at risk from that arrangement or structure, we also decided that the same chief executive should have a statutory responsibility to ensure that all staff have clear information about exactly what is expected of them in a given child abuse situation.
	The group also felt that authorities should have more regard to transparency in their conduct of such matters. As Members of Parliament representing all the people of Norfolk we had difficulty in getting information out of the authorities concerned. We were greatly helped by the energies of local media and by public support, but it should not be so. Paradoxically, professionals get more blame from the public if there is less transparency about what happens in a given case. Trade unions and professional organisations understandably worry about witch hunts. Everyone can see that. The public, equally understandably, know only what the media tell them. They cannot understand why child abuse tragedies continue to occur while no one is ever seen to be blamed. We all thought that there should be more transparency and an open and public debate about responsibility and blame in society. We thought all those things important.
	I add this plea. I ask the Minister to pay attention to the problems of rural isolation with respect to professional agencies. In particular, there could be a reluctance in a small rural school that is close to its community to suspect—let alone denounce—people in that community of child abuse. In such areas, there could be a series of different solutions, such as a special unit at the LEA, or even—I hesitate to suggest this because I think it is a generational point—a return to the old-fashioned role of the school nurse. If the school nurse had gone in and out of that school to examine the children regularly, professionally and objectively, Lauren Wright would not have died, because her injuries would have been uncovered. I understand that school nurses do other things now. I know that my suggestion may seem old-fashioned, but it is a practical idea that might help in future. I am grateful that last summer Ministers accepted amendments to the Education Act 2002 which, in effect, made statutory for teachers, school governors, local education authorities and further education colleges the observance of child abuse guidelines.
	It is truly inexplicable that, when there is agreement among Members on both sides of the House, policy and practice changes should be urgently required to reduce an unacceptable number of child deaths. The Government themselves announced that the Green Paper would be issued in spring, but changed that to before the summer recess. However, today we are not much nearer to knowing what they have in mind. The Secretary of State, rather skilfully, I thought, said that there was a delay of one parliamentary week, but in fact it is a delay of several months on the date announced by the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), then Secretary of State for Health, on 28 January. The Minister for Children is a former local authority leader and has experience of these matters. I hope that she agrees that the Government should not have spent three years since the appalling death of a helpless, hapless and innocent child considering what should be done. They should not be obfuscating the reasons for the delay in their action. The hon. Lady has only just begun her important job. In the name of all the Victorias and all the Laurens, we want her to get on with it.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: I rise to defend the Government's actions on the protection of children, specifically in my capacity as chair of the all-party group on abuse investigations.
	In the past five years, 35 police authorities throughout the UK have conducted more than 80 extensive inquiries into historical cases of sex abuse in care homes. Many hon. Members will know of my concerns about those inquiries, but it cannot be denied that energy, time and money that has been spent on them. I estimate that perhaps as much as £500 million has been spent investigating complaints involving thousands of cared-for young people throughout the UK in the past five years. Under the previous Administration things were not perfect, and many children living in children's homes were neglected. We need to understand what it was like then for children in care homes who were preyed on by abusive carers. Young people attempted to complain, but whether or not the complaint was acted on was at the discretion of the person they spoke to. The lack of prosecutions over a long period was indicative of the collective failure of the agencies responsible for the care of vulnerable young children.
	We must be realistic and fair about the reasons for the failure of the agencies that care for children. We have already acknowledged that the vast majority of professionals working in this area do so because they are passionately concerned about the welfare of the children. However, historically, they have worked with administrations that were procedurally inadequate, and those inadequacies militated against the effective management of complaints. Significantly, there was no statutory relationship to bring the agencies working with vulnerable children together. That serious omission invariably meant that agencies receiving complaints were completely unaware of complaints made in other areas.
	Those omissions were partly addressed by the Children Act 1989, but until then, a child making a complaint could have spoken to a significant number of people, none of whom were connected together administratively. Hence there was no collective understanding of the extent of abuse endured by a child. The Children Act sought to address that administrative failure, but it took years to implement. Crucially, it was introduced at a time when social services budgets stood still at best, and in many cases were being dramatically eroded. The measures detailed in the Children Act called for funding, which simply did not exist. It was all talk, and the lack of funding left the vulnerable, vulnerable.
	That huge funding omission was addressed in September 1998, when nearly £1 billion—£880 million, to be precise—was invested in the quality protects programme to improve children's social services, sure start and the Connexions service. I could speak at length about those additional services, which meant a great deal to vulnerable children. Many authorities throughout the country, including my own, desperately needed the money. It was not the lack of concern in social services departments that led to complaints being ignored, but lack of funding to pay for an adequate number of appropriately trained staff who could respond comprehensively to complaints.
	Cash was needed not only in social services departments, but in all the other major public sector agencies involved in child care, to allow them to support joint agency approaches and resolve complaints by children effectively. The police needed further funding, and the enormous children's fund has allowed them to do much good work. The education departments needed huge amounts of funding to employ appropriately qualified staff to work in schools. Health care providers and all the other agencies working with children received dramatic funding uplifts. The Government continue to invest substantially in those areas.
	Now, when a child makes a complaint the public authorities have a duty to refer the complaint for investigation. The environment in which looked-after children live has changed radically in the past six years. The Government have passed—and, crucially, funded—a raft of legislation designed to protect vulnerable young people, including the Care Standards Act 2000, to improve the inspection and regulation of children's care services, and the Protection of Children Act 1999, which strengthened safeguards against unsuitable people working with children. The Sexual Offences Bill currently going through the House creates a new range of offences designed to offer children under 13 the maximum protection. I can also give testimony to the good work of my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) in introducing the child protection register.
	The situation is still not perfect, but the system now not only reacts to complaints made by looked-after children but is proactive, recognising that many of those children may not have the confidence to make a complaint of their own volition. If the police receive a complaint from a looked-after child, they will interview that child and all the other children who have ever lived in the home, irrespective of their age—an extraordinary commitment to the vulnerable.
	I was especially pleased when the Government made the decision to continue to care for children after the age of 16. The acknowledgement that children over 16 still need care was such an important and long-awaited move. They are now looked after, and I am delighted with that measure. There is still a great deal to be done, but we have introduced measures that adequately demonstrate our commitment to children and the vulnerable.

Virginia Bottomley: The House will be aware that this place legislated for the protection of animals several decades before there was legislation to protect children. It is appalling that in this day and age children are still so cruelly treated.
	I welcome the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). His enlightened and principled approach was enormously heartening. It took me back to the speech by the late Lord Joseph to the Pre-School Playgroup Association on the cycle of deprivation, when many of my own thoughts about child care began. I speak as someone who for many years was chairman of a juvenile court, and I have a mental health background rather than a local government background. I have been involved in the Children's Society and, as the Register of Members' Interests shows, now spend a great deal of time trying to bring effective good managers who are committed to the cause into many of our leading charities and public services.
	It is a serious matter that we have not seen more action following the Laming report. The report is, as all would expect, outstanding. Lord Laming is one of a number of extraordinarily eminent inspectors of social services. We have been well served by their contribution, including those of Sir William Utting and now Denise Platt. The contribution that they make must be heard. It is pragmatic, sensible and to the point.
	What so many people forget is that dealing with child abuse is one of the most difficult things for any professional worker. If children are removed needlessly, as they were in Cleveland, social workers will receive abuse for getting the decision wrong. If children are left in a home or a children's home where they lose their lives, the social worker is all too easily blamed. Social workers, unlike doctors, are more likely to leave the front line the more experience they get, so the least qualified and least experienced people will be doing the most difficult jobs, exercising the judgment of Solomon and facing the rage of the parent or carer if anyone dare suggest that they might be injuring their child. That is no excuse, but people need to understand the enormous pressures that social workers face.
	The crisis regarding child care professionals is very serious. I looked up the figures. In 1995 there were 11,500 applicants for social work places, but by 2001 that figure had fallen to 4,000. That is very serious. The subject of child abuse and neglect also suffers various fads and fashions, such as satanic abuse, and I have to say that the whole issue of politically correct behaviour is also important. We need to learn the lessons about how many of the children who are affected come from ethnic minority homes. I well remember—as will my noble Friend Baroness Howarth, from her Lambeth days—the concept that a child from an ethnic minority family should expect a different sort of chastisement from that which a child from a white family should expect. That is unacceptable in this day and age, and we must consider all the aspects of practice. I also want to mention data protection problems. Too often people are afraid to record on file that injuries are suspicious and may relate to non-accidental injury or child abuse, because the files are open. We must look very seriously at that matter.
	It was my privilege to take part in the implementation of the Children Act 1989. In that regard, I pay the greatest credit to the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who undertook the most detailed consultation with the different agencies in a very open spirit before implementing the legislation. The programme of training was phenomenal. In particular, it involved the judges and the legal profession, as well as social services and social workers.
	I want to make two further points. This debate is about vulnerable children. It is appalling that a child a week should die as a result of injury caused by adults, but three times that number die on the roads, and many more die by taking their own lives. If we want to get our priorities straight about the problems faced by young people in our generation, child mental health is critical. I urge the Minister for Children, in her new role, to look into child mental health and at the work of Young Minds, and to understand the suffering and pain caused to young people and the epidemic of suicide among them. The suicide rate among young men has almost doubled in the past 20 years.
	I am sceptical about the nature of the hon. Lady's role, and troubled by the fact that her post is within the Department for Education and Skills. The group that nobody has mentioned today is health visitors, who have greater licence to enter a home and ask a family to remove a child's clothes than those in any other professional group. It has to be said that teachers are not the most skilled in this area. Their record on truancy and casting difficult children into sin bins, getting them out of their way so that they can teach the main cohort, does not make them the people who are naturally most alert to child abuse and neglect.
	As often as not, the issue is about the relationship between social services departments and health-related departments. They are both Department of Health responsibilities. It is hard enough persuading Health Ministers to fight for the social services budget, but it is very difficult to understand how a junior Education Minister will fight for the social services and health budgets. I remain to be convinced.
	There is no simple answer—and for the children whom we are talking about, cost shunting is often at the heart of the problem. They are expensive children with needy, difficult families. It does not matter whether it is the Home Office, the Department for Education and Skills, the Department of Health or a social services department that ends up funding their care—we believe in joined-up Government—but there is a cost at the local level, and we must look very carefully at how that works in practice.
	I wish the Minister for Children well with her responsibilities: I cannot stress their importance strongly enough. We have to learn the lessons of this appalling latest episode. To err is human, to fail to learn is unacceptable, and to cover up is unforgivable. We have to be open and diligent in working to ensure that every child has as stable and happy an upbringing as possible.

Eleanor Laing: It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Virginia Bottomley), who has tremendous experience in these matters.
	This has been a serious debate because it is about serious, often sad and upsetting, issues. I commend the eloquent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has done a great deal of work on child protection for many months. I shall not repeat all his points in the short time available, but of course I agree with every one of them.
	The Secretary of State urged me to accept a cross-party consensus, so I shall begin by agreeing with the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). I do not often agree with a Liberal. He made some good points, but, most importantly, he took up the Secretary of State's remarks about the delay in the Green Paper on children at risk. The Secretary of State says that that delay is only one parliamentary week. What ridiculous spin gone mad. Strictly speaking, we know that that is true, but it is months—many weeks—since January in the real world. Does the Secretary of State think that cruelty to children stops because the Houses of Parliament are not sitting? I do not know why the Minister for Children is laughing; it is not funny. Children continue to be at risk in the course of one parliamentary week.
	I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) for her wise words. She, like my other colleagues, knows the subject well; she has been steeped in it because of the sad case in her constituency.
	I commend much of the speech by the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Woodward). His work on ChildLine has been very successful over the years. I take his point about reasonable chastisement. I undertake to consider that, but I sincerely hope that the Minister will also do so.
	The Secretary of State, in urging me to accept a cross-party consensus, wants to pay homage to those who have worked on the subject in the past; I join him in doing so. I show respect for Ministers of all parties who have done something about trying to improve child protection. I have a lot of respect for the former Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), and the way in which he handled the Laming report when he presented it to this House. Indeed, I commend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills for the progress that has been made so far.
	The hon. Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) made the excellent point that we need to know who will be the one person who is responsible locally; we have to wait for the Green Paper to deal with that. While we are waiting, I commend Essex county council—my county—for its pioneering attitude in bringing together the departments of education and social services. We have some excellent people in Essex who will make that work.
	I remain seriously concerned about the delay in the publication of the Green Paper and the consequent delay in improving services for vulnerable children. As other hon. Members said, the former Secretary of State for Health clearly stated in January that the Green Paper would be published in the spring. When it was not, the former Leader of the House assured us in good faith that it would be published before the summer recess. That was not unreasonable; things were going well, the Government were taking the necessary action and we agreed with them. However, the Prime Minister threw a spanner in works by appointing the hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) as Minister for Children.
	We welcomed the creation of the post of a Minister for Children that would bring together cross-departmental functions. That was practical and good, and many hon. Members from all parties agreed with it. I believed that that new post would mean more Government attention on the issues that Lord Laming's report identified. Far from providing a focus on vulnerable children, the hon. Lady has simply provided a focus on herself and no action on the Laming report. She devised three different excuses for not publishing the Green Paper; the Secretary of State came up with even more today.
	The first excuse was the Prime Minister. Two weeks ago, his official spokesman said that the Prime Minister wanted to be present at the Green Paper's launch and that he had no time in his diary to undertake such an engagement until the autumn. What is the Prime Minister doing between two weeks ago and the autumn that is more important than the protection of vulnerable children? It is extraordinarily difficult to find out. I wrote to ask him, and his office replied that his diary cannot be published for security reasons. That is fair enough but I wonder whether the reply refers to security from international terrorists or whether he would prefer that his Back Benchers did not know where to find him. The Prime Minister is probably too busy to bother about a mere Green Paper because he has to practise his Pinocchio performances in front of Commons Committees and the BBC.
	Let us be fair to the Prime Minister. It is not his job to publish a Green Paper on children at risk; that is why he has a new Minister for Children. She came up with two further excuses. She says that she wants to be Minister not only for children but for young people and their families. As a sort of tsarina for everyone, she wants to expand the Green Paper's remit. That is not a good excuse. She can produce pages of glossy waffle about her politically correct ideas if she wishes, but she should deal with Lord Laming's recommendations now. We do not mind waiting until the autumn for the waffle.

David Taylor: Perhaps it would help hon. Members if, as well as giving us a tirade against the Minister, the hon. Lady would outline some of Her Majesty's Opposition's options, policies and priorities on the most important topic of child abuse.

Eleanor Laing: The hon. Gentleman has been absent for the debate. It has been serious, and we are tackling the issue of child abuse. [Interruption.] I cannot hear the hon. Gentleman; he is murmuring. We do not mind waiting until the autumn for the rest of the Minister's ideas, but we should have the Green Paper now.
	The Minister's third excuse is that it is only a Green Paper or discussion document, not a statement of Government policy and therefore not urgent. However, it is not only a Green Paper. The document was promised as the Government's response to Lord Laming's report on the Victoria Climbié inquiry. Lord Laming recommended action within six months. Local authorities have done all that they can on the Laming recommendations, as far as we know. We went into that in great detail during the Secretary of State's speech. We do not know, but we believe that they have done all that they can so far. They need to know the Government's response before they can go further. Local authorities are in limbo, time is being wasted and children are at risk.
	I know that the Minister has been under pressure because of her past record of failure to protect children in Islington. It was, of course, the first London borough to ban fox hunting, but it was not very good at paedophile hunting. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Whatever happens, hon. Members should not shout at the hon. Lady. She has been called to speak and she should be allowed a hearing. Sometimes insulting hon. Members is all right, provided that it is within the rules of the House.

Eleanor Laing: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not intend to insult anyone but to put before the House the facts about what is really happening. That is what we are here to do.

Lorna Fitzsimons: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Eleanor Laing: I do not have time to give way.
	The Minister for Children said that she had learned from her mistakes, and I hoped that she had, because it is quite reasonable to do so. But the facts that have emerged in the last few weeks show that she has not. Surely the main lessons to be learned from her past must be that words are not the same as actions, and that producing politically correct speeches does not bring results. That is why she was criticised before, but she is now doing exactly the same things again.
	The underlying theme of this Government is that image is more important than reality. No wonder no one can trust them. No wonder no one believes a word that they say. [Interruption.] I am not scoring political points. I am doing my duty, which is to hold this Government to account for their mistakes, their failures and their negligence. [Interruption.] Labour Members ought to get their priorities right. The duty of this House is not to protect a discredited Minister, but to protect vulnerable children.

Margaret Hodge: Apart from the opening and closing speeches, we have had a lot of thoughtful contributions from both sides of the House today on this central issue of concern, which should be above party politics. The final contribution from the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) demonstrated that, to the Conservatives, children are nothing more than a convenient political tool to be exploited to narrow political advantage.

Eleanor Laing: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Hon. Members: Sit down!

Mr. Speaker: Order. I call for calm. We are about to have a recess: we should be happy. We should not be so angry with one another.

Margaret Hodge: My final comment on the speech made by the hon. Member for Epping Forest is that I agree with her that actions are more important than words. Certainly, my actions have done—and will do—more for children than her words ever could.
	Let me deal with the contributions of the Back Benchers, who have said some important things. I agree with the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) and others on the importance of social workers. One of my key ambitions in my new role is to raise the status of social workers in our society. We all value teachers, police officers and doctors, but we do not give the same value and credence to those utterly key workers who do such a lot for children at the most vulnerable stages of their lives. One of the things on which we should be judged after our time in office is whether we have raised the status of social workers.
	The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam asked specific questions about the guidance on information sharing. I can tell him that on 19 May we issued guidance on the interpretation of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998, which we sent to the chief executives of all councils, to NHS bodies, to the police and directly to all doctors and nurses. The hon. Gentleman also asked who would be taking forward the implications of the Munby judgment. That has now been transferred as part of the responsibilities of our Department, working with colleagues across government.
	The hon. Gentleman also talked about the cultural change that we need to achieve if we are to be effective in putting children at the heart of the way in which we deliver services. That theme ran through a number of speeches. I agree that cultural change is absolutely imperative, not only among the professionals but in society. It will be a very tough task, and it will not be easy to achieve.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Woodward), who made an excellent speech, on his work as deputy chairman of ChildLine. I agree that the best that our past and future actions can achieve is to make things that much better for children. It should not be thought that in such a difficult area, in which difficult judgments must be made, we can ever get it right all the time—however well people are trained, and however experienced they are in any of the spheres involved in working with children. Nevertheless, our duty and our endeavour must be to make things better.

Patrick McLoughlin: Can the Minister confirm that the only reason for the delay in the Green Paper's publication is the Prime Minister's diary?

Margaret Hodge: There is no single reason for the delay; there are several reasons, and if the hon. Gentleman will be patient I shall come to them in due course. Anyone who is concerned about children, especially vulnerable children, surely accepts that further consultation is as important as ensuring that the Prime Minister launches—

Eleanor Laing: Will the Minister give way?

Margaret Hodge: Not at this stage.

David Taylor: Could not the delay be used for reflection on more recent incidents, such as the internet seduction involving the 13-year-old from Lancashire, now happily restored to her parents? Is that not a further example of "children at risk", and an emerging vulnerability in a changing society?

Margaret Hodge: Over time we need to consider anything that happens, and things happen day by day. We need to reflect, listen and learn from every single incident that places a child at risk of abuse, or endangers that child.
	My hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South mentioned a number of issues that ChildLine wished to raise with me, some of which I believe are extremely important. I am delighted to be meeting Esther Rantzen next week to discuss several of them, and I should be happy to meet my hon. Friend and others as well.
	The right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) gave a harrowing description of the errors and muddles that led to the tragic death of Lauren Wright in her constituency. She said that judgments were difficult, so procedures were important. I agree with that, but I hope that she agrees that procedures will not make a difference unless they are accompanied by a range of measures, such as the training of all who will have an impact on children's lives. Account should be taken of common assessments and the tracking of information. Procedures are important, but we need to do far more to strengthen the infrastructure in which we can then protect children and young people.

Gillian Shephard: Surely the Minister agrees that in the case of Lauren Wright, and indeed in the case of Victoria Climbié and many others, ignoring and disregarding procedures proved fatal. That was my point, that is why the Green Paper is important—I hope it will emphasise the need for new procedures—and that is what we want the Government to accept this evening.

Margaret Hodge: I agree with the right hon. Lady that procedures are important. I hope that she agrees that the legislative framework established by her party in the Children Act 1989 specified a number of procedures on which we now need to build.
	I pay tribute to the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) as chair of the all-party group on abuse investigations. She said a great deal about information sharing, which I too consider important. She also acknowledged the money that we have provided to support children and prevent them from being subjected to abuse or danger, through quality projects, sure start, Connexions and the children fund—as well as the extra money that we have provided for mainstream education services, the police and the Youth Justice Board.
	The right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Virginia Bottomley) stressed the importance of the social work profession, and I agree with her on that. She talked about work force problems, and I share her concern. We need massive reform of how we recruit, train and retain people to work in the range of childcare professions. The right hon. Lady also questioned whether locating the joined-up services in the Department for Education and Skills was appropriate. If we are trying to build stronger preventive services so that we can target the appropriate action to protect children, it is important to put those services in a Department that provides a universal service to all our children and young people. The trick that we shall have to perform—the right hon. Lady will need to watch us on it—is that as we bring together all the professions that work with children, we must value the contribution of each and ensure that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts in its impact on children's lives.
	The central contention in the motion tabled by the Opposition is plain wrong. It is simply not the case that the action that we need to take to implement many of the recommendations put forward by Lord Laming in his thorough and comprehensive inquiry has to await the publication of our Green Paper. Indeed, it is unbelievable and unimaginable to suggest that we would not want to make progress as soon as we could in every direction possible.

Tim Loughton: rose—

Eleanor Laing: Will the Minister give way?

Margaret Hodge: No. Every year—[Interruption.] Every year, between 50 and 100 children are killed by their parents or carers—

Tim Loughton: Will the Minister give way on that point?

Margaret Hodge: No, I want to make some progress. The names of children such as Darren Clark, who died in 1979, Maria Colwell, Jasmine Beckford, Kimberly Carlile, Paul Brown, Tyra Henry and Lauren Wright will always be embedded in our minds. The horrific life endured by eight-year-old Victoria Climbié when she came to England stands as an indictment on us all. We must all do all that we can, as soon as we can, to put in place the structures, policies, programmes and people that will ensure that every child in our society is safe and protected from the dangers of abuse and injury—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister is not giving way. [Hon. Members: "Why not?"] I do not know why.

Margaret Hodge: Of course we have taken action to implement the recommendations of the Laming inquiry. Indeed, on the very day that the then Secretary of State got up in the House to present the report of the inquiry, action had already started. For instance, the Metropolitan police began restructuring its child protection services. On the very day that we published Lord Laming's report, we issued a checklist of those recommendations that we considered to be basic good practice. Since then, we have published the booklet for professionals, "What To Do If You're Worried A Child Is Being Abused", to simplify the procedures for people. We are reviewing training needs and we have increased resources for social work. We have introduced a new three-year social work degree. We have run a national recruitment campaign, and the number of applications to become a social worker has risen by 6.5 per cent.

Tim Loughton: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way at last. We are impressed by the number of checklists, booklet and reviews, but that does not constitute action. We still have no idea of how we can audit what action has been taken by bodies on the ground.

Margaret Hodge: I dispute the contention by the hon. Gentleman that the actions we have taken are not action. Of 108 recommendations in Lord Laming's report, 83 have been fully or partly addressed. The implied allegation in the Opposition motion that delayed publication of the Green Paper would stop us acting to protect children is plain wrong.
	The Green Paper will contain further far-reaching proposals to continue and develop our programme of reform for children's services. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has done a superb job, together with other Ministers, in formulating the strategy for the future. I, for my part, am proud that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is so committed to this issue that he has insisted on personally launching the Green Paper. This is unequivocally good news for children.
	I am also pleased that I can use the extra time that we have to consult even more widely with, and listen even more carefully to, those at the front line who have the day-to-day experience of working with children. We shall put forward proposals that strongly reflect our vision and values for children and young people. They are that every child matters, and that every child must have the opportunity to fulfil his or her potential. We cannot allow children's life chances to be blighted by the age of five because of where they live or where they came from, and every child must be properly protected so that they are safe.

Tim Loughton: rose—

Margaret Hodge: In addition, we believe that no child should be denied the chance to make the most of his or her life.
	Those are the values that underpin my approach and that will inform our policies. They are the values on which we shall build a coalition of support so that every child can grow up healthy, safe and fulfilled.
	This is a really serious issue, and every hon. Member should engage seriously with the issues involved. I want to work with everybody on these difficult issues. They should be above party politics.
	I wish that I could be grateful that the Conservatives had recognised how key child protection is and that it was this recognition that had led them to have the debate this afternoon. But no: this debate was put on the Order Paper not because of the Conservative party's interest in children's issues, but because of Conservative Members' crude pursuit of party politics—[Interruption.]

Eleanor Laing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I take the point of order, I inform the House that I am chairing the proceedings. I tell hon. Members when to sit down, and I do it rather nicely.

Eleanor Laing: My point of order is that the reason that Opposition called the debate is stated clearly in the motion. It is because we care about children. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The debate was well within the rules. That is why I allowed the motion to go on the Order Paper.

Margaret Hodge: It is not children who are at the heart of the Conservatives' concern. It is shoddy opportunism.
	Where was the Conservative party in the 1980s and 1990s, when local authorities were pleading for proper resourcing? [Interruption.]

Tim Loughton: rose—

Hon. Members: Sit down!

Mr. Speaker: Order. Once again I ask for calmness. There is no need for this shouting across the Chamber.

Margaret Hodge: Where were the Tories when beleaguered social workers—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I say again that there is no point in shouting across the Chamber.

Margaret Hodge: Where were the Tories—
	David Maclean rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put, but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
	The House divided: Ayes 179, Noes 316.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
	The House divided: Ayes 300, Noes 168.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House welcomes the Government's commitment to children's services as evidenced by the appointment of the Minister of State for Children; congratulates the Government on its Quality Protects initiative, which provided £885 million to improve children's social services; supports the action the Government is taking to legislate to establish an independent inspectorate to inspect local authority children's services and social care provided by the private and voluntary sector; notes that the Government, local authorities and other statutory bodies are already taking further action to improve services for children, in the light of the Victoria Climbié Inquiry Report; congratulates the Government and local services on the announcement of the 35 Children's Trusts Pathfinders on 10th July; and looks forward to the publication of the Green Paper on children in the autumn.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Local Government Finance (England)

That the Special Grant Report (No. 125) (HC 776) on the Preserved Rights Grant for 2003–04, dated 16th June 2003, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th June, be approved.—[Charlotte Atkins.]

Mr. Speaker: I think the Ayes have it.

Hon. Members: No.
	Division deferred till Wednesday 10 September, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 29 October 2002]

Local Government Finance (England)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
	That the Special Grant Report (No. 124) (HC 777) on the Delayed Discharges Grant for 2003–04, dated 16th June 2003, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th June, be approved.—[Charlotte Atkins.]

Mr. Speaker: I think the Ayes have it.

Hon. Members: No.
	Division deferred till Wednesday 10 September, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 29 October 2002].

Eric Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You must have been almost embarrassed to have announced that to the House. Is not this the ultimate illustration of the absurdity of deferred Divisions? Here we have a motion before the House which we have objected to, and you have now told us that Members of the House will have to wait until 10 September to write down their vote on a ballot paper, in a Division Lobby, conveniently immediately after Prime Minister's questions, and that is when the matter will be resolved. History will record that this was the ultimate absurdity of deferred Divisions.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman is aware of the Standing Orders of the House.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6)(Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Local Government Finance (England)

That the Special Grant Report (No. 123) (HC 778) on the Social Services (High Performers No. 2) Grant for 2003–04, dated 16th June 2003, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th June, be approved.—[Charlotte Atkins.]

Mr. Speaker: I think the Ayes have it.

Hon. Members: No.
	Division deferred till Wednesday10 September, pursuant to Orders [June 28 2001 and 29 October 2002].

Patrick McLoughlin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We debated those three motions Upstairs in Committee this week. However, you have informed the House, because of Standing Orders over which you have no control, that we cannot determine them until some time in September, as my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House said. Is that not ridiculous? It also shows the Government's contempt for the House.
	There is a motion on the Order Paper not to defer a Division, because that might have been convenient for the Government. However, as dividing on the motion would have kept Labour Members here for a short time to vote, they were not prepared to waive the deferred Division. Do you think that that should go to the Procedure Committee for consideration?

Mr. Speaker: I would not get involved in how the Government conduct themselves. However, there is nothing to stop the hon. Gentleman writing to the Procedure Committee on that matter.

PETITIONS
	 — 
	Pharmacy Services

Ann Widdecombe: The petition "Save our Pharmacy Services", which I have the honour to present, is signed by 2,000 petitioners.
	The petition declares:
	That the proposals made by the Office of Fair Trading allowing the unrestricted opening of pharmacies able to dispense NHS prescriptions will precipitate chaotic changes to the distribution of pharmaceutical services; lead to less convenient access for many patients, particular the elderly and those without transport and have a detrimental impact on the contribution made to primary care services by community pharmacies.
	The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to reject the proposals made by the OFT for the unrestricted opening of pharmacies.
	And the petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Fair Trade

Andrew Selous: I wish to present a petition on behalf of several hundred of my constituents from the towns of Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, Houghton Regis and the surrounding villages concerning fair and free trade for the less developed world.
	The petition states:
	To the House of Commons
	The Petition of the constituents of South West Bedfordshire states that fairer trade rules are needed to increase what the poor can earn for themselves through trade.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons encourage the Government, as the UK prepares for September's World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Mexico, to ask that they ensure that the UK Government supports the demands of the Trade Justice Movement.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Accident Group

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Charlotte Atkins.]

Peter Kilfoyle: First, may I say what an honour it is, Mr. Speaker, that you should choose to remain in the Chair for this Adjournment debate? May I take the opportunity to wish you and your wife a pleasant and relaxing summer break from your arduous duties?
	I wish to raise the issue of the Accident Group, a personal injury firm that collapsed overnight on 30 May, sacking 2,700 people, many of whom were told by text message. The majority were left without salaries, and huge questions remain to be answered about the way in which the firm functioned. Why did directors continue to spend frivolously when they knew that the firm was in serious financial difficulty? It owed six months' national insurance payments. Why was there a deliberate board-level change in policy last year, which meant that the firm held on to millions of pounds that should have been paid back to the banks? Why did the company's sales reps deliberately target vulnerable, poverty-stricken people and entice them to fabricate claims, knowing that they were false? Why as yet is there no regulation of these so-called claims farmers, and why has no investigation been launched by the Department of Trade and Industry?
	The Accident Group, which is known by the acronym TAG, was started by Mr. Mark Langford as a small personal injury claims firm in 1993. In 1999, after the Access to Justice Act 1999 created a market following the loss of legal aid, the company took off. In the new era of no win, no fee, TAG was responsible for the catch phrase, "Where there's blame, there's a claim," and stormed on to the scene, conquering 25 per cent. of the personal injury market in less than two years. The company claimed to be one of the fastest growing UK businesses, and reported an increase in turnover of 179 per cent. last year to £243 million. Based in Manchester, and part of the Amulet Group, the firm worked by asking the claimant to take out a bank loan to pay for a post-event insurance policy. That bank loan would pay for TAG's fees, and would be paid back to the bank from the damages won by the claimant in a case—at least that was the theory.
	If the claimant lost the case, the insurance policy would pay out, and the loan would be paid back anyway, leading the claimant to walk away and pay nothing—hence the claim, "No win, no fee". Claimants were sought by telesales, door-to-door canvassing, secondary selling—a claimant would be asked if they had a relative or friend who wanted to claim, or whether they wanted to make another claim themselves—and television and radio advertising. Teams of salesman even used to trawl for claimants on the streets in the centre of my own city of Liverpool. As well as a basic salary of £1,300 a calendar month, reps were paid £50 a claim for 33 per cent. of the claims that they wrote up. Until last August, that commission was paid regardless of whether a case was taken up or not. A salesman would find a claimant and get them to sign a form stating the nature of the injury and the cause of the accident. The details would then go back to the office, where another part of the company called Accident Investigations Ltd., or AIL, would investigate the claim further to see if it had a chance of winning. Once AIL had decided to go ahead with the claim, it would be activated—a credit agreement would be signed by the claimant who would take out a bank loan from the Royal Bank of Scotland, which would cover TAG's £995 fees, AIL's £320 investigation fee, any medical fees—on average, about about £400—and other disbursements.
	Once the loan had been taken out, the case would be passed to an independent vetting firm of solicitors, a Manchester-based firm called Rowe Cohen. The firm would in turn pass the case to one of a panel of 600 or 700 solicitors for a vetting fee of about £50 plus VAT. That solicitor would then take the case on for the claimant and deal directly with him or her. If the case succeeded in court or was settled for an agreed amount, the bank loan and the solicitor's fees would be paid out of the damages and the claimant would get whatever was left—in many cases, not very much. If the case failed after a court hearing, the insurance policy would pay out and the fees of all those involved in the case except the solicitors would be paid, and the bank loan would be paid back from that.
	Sometimes claimants could not be contacted by the solicitor, or would not want to go ahead with the case, or it was found that the amount winnable in damages would not cover the costs of taking the case, or that the case was fraudulent. In an agreement drawn up between TAG, the insurance underwriters and the banks, if that happened after the loan had been activated and the case was less than nine months old and had had less than £55 of disbursements spent on it, it could be voided. That meant that TAG would pay back its £999 fee, AIL would pay back its £320 fee, the insurance company would pay back its premium, and the entire bank loan would be paid back as though nothing had ever happened. Everyone would go back to zero and the case would be binned. Seemingly, everyone was a winner, or at least not a loser.
	However, I must give credit to BBC Radio—a much-maligned part of our media, but I have great respect for it, and for no programme more than "You and Yours", which investigated the company and revealed several anomalies. Panel firms of solicitors would pay, as I said, £50 to take on a case on the basis of information provided by TAG, yet once taken on, the standard of cases passing through the vetting solicitors Rowe Cohen was found to be so bad that one panel firm said to the programme's researchers that out of 1,200 cases offered by TAG, only 150 were of sufficient standard to be pursued. The rest were exaggerated, embellished or simply fraudulent. That raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the procedures of Rowe Cohen.
	TAG sales representatives were told to get four claims a day, but because of the commission basis were encouraged to get as many as they could. Sources in the company revealed that as the company grew, the reps became less and less concerned with the validity of the claims, and in numerous cases not only knew the claims to be fraudulent, but set up the situation for the fraudulent claims to be made. I emphasise that not all TAG sales reps were unscrupulous—not at all. Indeed, some claim that they raised their concerns about methods with the company, but were ignored.
	We must be aware of the structure above the reps. Managing the sales rep was a supervisor. Above him or her was a first line manager, then an area manager, then a regional manager, then a divisional manager, and ultimately the cost centre manager. They were all paid commission on a sliding scaled based on the reps' performance at the bottom of the heap. It was like an inverted form of pyramid selling. Some reps would knock on doors after a bus crash and recruit claimants by getting them to sign forms and filling in the details later.
	One man said that a visit from a TAG rep resulted in a claim for industrial deafness while working at the Ford Motor Company, another claim for vibration white finger caused by operating a kango hammer while working for Cruden, and a third claim for injuries after being involved in a bus crash, but the man remarked that he had never worked for Ford or Cruden, and had never travelled on a crashing bus. The rep had told him—a vulnerable single father of four—that he would get his money anyway. I should point out that Arriva and two other bus companies are investigating 400 such allegedly fraudulent claims.
	Other reps would wait for vulnerable people outside jobcentres, then lead them round a comer before talking them into claiming that they had tripped over a paving stone, conveniently photographing them at the scene as part of the claim. One rep would use a series of five potholes successively, enticing cars full of passengers to them, then persuading the driver to claim, falsely, that he had driven over the pothole. The driver and passengers would all be written up for non-existent whiplash injuries.
	Cleaners were the easiest, one rep said, because any woman who worked as a cleaner could be convinced that she had a work-related injury. People working as security guards and office workers were also easily persuaded. Effectively, anybody who worked could fall into the scam. One lady alleged that she had been approached in the street and that a fraudulent claim was written up in her name despite her asking otherwise—and the rep still received the commission.
	One of the reps has gone on record as saying that he used to stand outside Liverpool prison in my constituency waiting for prisoners to be released, after which he would talk them into claiming that they had a bad back that had been caused by sleeping on lumpy mattresses. I did not know that it was possible to sue the Prison Service for that. Hundreds of such claims went through the system. No claims ever reached the prison, but the point is that the reps were paid their commission. The rep also talked about persuading a woman who broke her leg on an ice rink to sue on the basis that the signs saying "Danger—Slippery Surface" were not visible enough. It was not seen as relevant that the woman was wearing ice skates at the time.
	Much of the documentation that has become available reveals that a large number of claims submitted to the company were false and known to be so by the reps. However, until last August, when the rules changed, they retained their commission. The reps' explanation is simple. They were under enormous pressure from the company to hit claims targets. They say that four claims a day was their standard target. As I mentioned, when a case was no longer active, it could be voided and the moneys taken out and paid back. On average, in 2001–02, 15,000 cases a month were activated. Loan amounts could vary, but they included that standard fee of £995 for TAG and £320 for AIL. A loan of about £1,500 was the norm.
	For months, out of 15,000 cases activated in a month, 2,500 to 3,000 cases were voided—a rate of about 13 or 15 per cent. Consequently, the moneys were paid back. For TAG alone, the total would be £2.5 million to £3 million a month, and for AIL, which was wholly owned by TAG, it would equal about another £1 million. That was quite normal in the business.
	In December 2002, that rate dropped overnight to 300 voided cases a month. That meant that only £300,000 was being paid back to the bank. The figures show that that went on for some time. Indeed, it continued from December 2002 until about the following April, when the number of voided cases suddenly leapt back up to 2,900. I am told that that came out of a row between a TAG director, Maria Berry, and Anthony Denison of Rowe Cohen, which made it clear that there was a problem for the company. In May 2003, the figure dropped back to 258.
	Then came the magical date of 30 May this year. There had been a deliberate change in policy at boardroom level, which meant that staff were being ordered not to void cases, as keeping cases alive for longer meant that the money would not have to be paid back to the bank, despite the company knowing that the case was dead. If the case was kept alive for longer than nine months, according to the agreement drawn up between the banks, TAG and the underwriters, when it failed, the underwriters would have to pay out on the insurance policy to refund the bank loan. That meant that TAG would keep the money from the bank loan.
	When the void rates dropped, staff questioned what was going on and were told by the directors, "Needs must: this is the way in which we must proceed." On the day before the company went into administration, one staff member was told to void 9,000 cases in one day. However, as the firm's accounts were frozen the very next morning, it still is not known, as far as I am aware, whether the money—approximately £9 million—was paid back to the bank.
	Last autumn, the new insurance underwriters insisted that the rules should change. That meant that sales reps were paid only when a case was activated, which improved the quality of the cases taken on. However, it was too late, as the cases written up in 2001–02 had done serious damage to the company. So many cases had failed and the insurance premiums were increasing at such a rate that TAG's fees could not cover them. The outcome was inevitable.
	Two meetings of TAG workers were held in Manchester and Liverpool. I mention this point en passant, as I think that it is important that we get it on record, as 2,700 people lost their jobs. It emerged that former members of staff were having difficulty in claiming jobseeker's allowance and were being told by jobcentres that not enough class 1 national insurance payments had been made on their behalf. Examination of wage slips showed that national insurance had been taken from salaries, and sources within the company confirmed that no national insurance payments had been made to the Contributions Agency after December.
	It is important to note that the Inland Revenue says that payment of tax can be deferred, with agreement, but the Contributions Agency says that national insurance "cannot under any circumstances" be deferred. Further inquiries revealed that TAG owes a grand total of £11.1 million in national insurance. I may be mistaken, but I believe that the directors of the company will be personally liable for that money. Remember, too, that the workers will be out of pocket. Not only have they lost their jobs and salaries, but for much of 2003 even the promised commission has not materialised. On 30 May, most of the work force were alerted that their May salaries would not be paid. Some were e-mailed; many were texted. What a way to lose a job in the 21st century.
	The last national insurance contributions were paid in December 2002, but the directors of the company continued to spend. Sources within the accounts department say that £420,000 was spent on a Christmas party for the staff that month. The directors went to Barbados with their families at a cost of £42,000. In March, a number of directors went to Barcelona to watch Manchester United play—on the company, of course—and in April the firm spent £70,000 on a new public address system to pipe soft music around the buildings. The executive car fleet contained one £225,000 Bentley, two Ferraris, one Aston Martin V8 Vantage, one £54,000 Range Rover, a Mercedes SLK and, for the poor relations, a Beetle for their exclusive use.
	Former accounts staff say that directors were warned repeatedly that they were spending too much, but those warnings were ignored. The staff believe that the company was being mismanaged and trading improperly. Certainly, evidence from former workers suggests that the directors knew that the firm was in serious financial difficulty, yet continued to spend. At the beginning of 2003—lo and behold—the directors began to buy their own cars from the company; it would be interesting to know if that was at a very reduced rate. Staff were told to sit on invoices and not to pay anyone until at least three letters of complaint were received, or the creditor went as far as threatening a county court judgment. Mysteriously, bits of furniture started to be removed without warning or explanation, and problems over unpaid commission began to emerge.
	The Accident Group went down owing millions of pounds. PricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm of administrators, is trying to untangle the mess. There are still approximately 250,000 ongoing cases, some of which are undoubtedly fraudulent, but many of which are genuine. They have been taken up by a firm called Lawcall. The Department of Trade and Industry has said that it is in touch with the administrators, that it will consider the merits of an investigation based on the information that it receives, and that the administrators have agreed to send it a copy of their report once it is complete. Meanwhile, Mr. Langford still retains assets in excess of £40 million, including a £3.5 million home in Cheshire. The sad outcome of the story is that there is still no regulation for claims farmers such as the Accident Group.
	I should like the Minister to respond to one or two brief questions. Is there any way in which the DTI or its sister Departments can help those employees? Will the directors be held to account? Given the advice that employees receive in Europe, can he confirm that there, this could not have happened without dialogue, notification or consultation with the work force? Are the Government thinking along the lines of providing an appropriate regulatory regime for claims farmers to pre-empt the chances of such a travesty ever happening again?

Tony Lloyd: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) on raising this subject. It is an enormous scandal for a company to operate, and cease to operate, in such a way. The company was based in my constituency and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer), who also took an interest in pursuing the issues.
	We must establish whether the company deliberately chose to withhold national insurance payments. That is tantamount to fraud. If that genuinely happened, we should ask serious questions about whether criminal proceedings are possible against those responsible, because they have robbed their employees. It is as simple and crude as that.
	When the company went down, I asked officials in the Department of Trade and Industry to take a close interest in the matter. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can say exactly how the Department has stewarded the process. It is important to note that PricewaterhouseCoopers, the receivers in the case, have asked for the industrial tribunal process to be deferred. That may be in the interests of the receivers and the asset base, but it is not in the interests of the employees. Will my hon. Friend look into that to ensure that the employees are given every protection? They have received no protection or consideration from the company.

Gerry Sutcliffe: I begin by expressing my good wishes for your recess, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that it will be a well-earned rest.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) on securing the debate. I thank him for detailing the circumstances that surrounded the announcement of the redundancy of the former employees of the Accident Group, and the company's operation. I appreciate the significance of the closure for Liverpool, Walton, where First Advance Ltd., part of the group, was based. I also acknowledge the anxieties of my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford—I am sorry, I mean my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd); the reference to Manchester United threw me. I acknowledge his anxieties about the redundancies. I shall endeavour to answer the points that have been made, but the issues are serious and I want to respond to some of them in due course. I hope that my hon. Friends accept my sincerity.
	I have every sympathy with the staff who worked for the companies in the Accident Group and lost their jobs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton said, it appears that news of the administration order and the likely loss of jobs was sent by text messages and e-mails to staff before the appointment of the administrators. They planned to hold meetings at the various work sites to let staff know what was happening. However, probably as a consequence of the text messages and the e-mails, few employees turned up for work. Several members of staff received notice of the proceedings through a voicemail message, which had been prepared for those who were off site and not expected in the office.
	It is regrettable that staff did not receive information at the planned meetings, at which they would also have been given information about their redundancy. Whenever redundancies have to be made, it is in everyone's interests that they be handled sensitively. Too often we hear of employees discovering out of the blue—sometimes even over the radio—that they are to be dismissed. People deserve better treatment.
	However, as my hon. Friend said, the administrators wrote to the staff on 30 May 2003, the day of their appointment, to explain about the administration order, the need for the redundancies and the statutory assistance available to employees from the redundancy payments section of the Insolvency Service.
	My hon. Friend asked what the Government were doing for the former employees of the Accident Group. Former workers may be eligible for payments of unpaid wages, holiday pay, payment in lieu of notice and redundancy pay from the national insurance fund. All those payments are subject to statutory limits. I assure hon. Members that the redundancy payments office in Birmingham is working hard to ensure that all workers receive the full statutory amount to which they are entitled as speedily as possible. Claim forms have been issued to former employees, and most have been returned to the Birmingham redundancy payments office via the administrators.
	The administrators have provided details of the group and confirmation and information about all individual former employees. By last weekend more than 1,000 employees should have received their payments. The Birmingham office aims to arrange payment for a similar number this week.
	I appreciate that the limits on payments in the statute generally mean that payments do not fully cover the total amount that employees are owed by their former employers. However, my hon. Friend may be pleased to note that this Government have regularly reviewed and increased the statutory limits, most recently in February this year to £260 a week for a maximum of eight weeks. There might be some staff who have not yet lodged a claim with the redundancy payments office. Detailed information about who is entitled to payments and what and how much they are likely to be entitled to can be found on the Insolvency Service website at www.insolvency.gov.uk under "Information about redundancy matters". Alternatively, anyone who has been made redundant and needs advice or information about their entitlements or their claim can phone the redundancy payments telephone helpline on 0845 145 0004. All calls to the helpline are charged at local rates.
	The administrators have a duty under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 to report to the Secretary of State on the conduct of the company's directors. The report is due approximately six months after the date of the insolvency. The Secretary of State then has a discretionary power to apply to the court for a disqualification order to be made against some or all of the directors. If such an order were to be obtained, it would run for between two and 15 years, and contravention can result not only in criminal sanctions but in the director becoming personally liable for the debts of any new company to which they are subsequently appointed.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton raised a point about Europe. Looking further ahead, last week we announced proposals for implementing the information and consultation directive. This is designed to promote ongoing dialogue with employees on business issues that affect them. I am pleased that we were able to agree with the CBI and the TUC a framework for implementing the directive in the UK. We hope that the new legislation will help to deliver a "no surprises" culture that will benefit not only employees but the businesses for which they work. My hon. Friend is right to say that implementation of the directive would mean that such a case could no longer arise.
	I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about the activities of the Accident Group and related companies, and that there have been calls for a code of conduct for that type of business. The Government are aware of the concerns about the activities of such companies, especially in relation to some companies' marketing methods. However, provided that they and similar intermediaries act responsibly and with probity, they can expand access for people with good claims, and provide helpful claims management services to solicitors.
	Any improper, misleading or dishonest conduct towards consumers—or, indeed, in respect of any other aspect of a company's business—would of course be of great concern. The marketing and sales activities need to be performed to the highest possible standards. The maximum effort needs to be made to ensure that consumers understand the nature of any agreement that they might be asked to enter into, what liabilities they might have under that agreement, and what, if anything, it will cost them.
	The Department for Constitutional Affairs is working with a range of organisations including the Law Society, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, the General Insurance Standards Council, consumer groups and other organisations, including claims management companies, to encourage high and common standards in accident compensation, including a voluntary code of practice. There is already considerable activity in the personal injury industry to improve and set standards and to draw up codes of practice for intermediaries. There are a number of initiatives at various stages of development, demonstrating the clear desire on the part of most intermediaries to bring about a step change in behaviour.
	The Government favour a voluntary approach and a degree of industry self-regulation, rather than new formal regulation. There is already regulation of most elements in the package of legal and financial services provided by claims management companies—for example, by the Law Society, the General Council of the Bar, the General Insurance Standards Council and, from 2005, the Financial Services Authority. However, it is clear that there is a regulatory maze in relation to legal services, and the Department for Constitutional Affairs has already announced plans to review the legal services regulatory framework. The scope of this review and the mechanism for carrying it forward will be announced in the summer.
	Job losses are always a matter of great regret, and the Government were sorry to learn of the closure of the Accident Group. It is particularly unfortunate when redundancies occur suddenly and without prior consultation. Our proposals for implementing the information and consultation directive will do much to help to end that sort of business culture. However, as I have explained to the House, a range of measures both practical and legislative are in place to assist employees who are made redundant. They cannot, of course, completely make up for employees' loss of a job through no fault of their own. However, I am satisfied that those measures represent an appropriate response by the Government to what is bound to be a regrettable situation for all those concerned.
	I undertake to look at all the issues that have arisen from the closure of the company, and at all the surrounding issues that need to be dealt with. I shall get back to my hon. Friend in due course, and I shall meet him when I can, to ensure that such an occurrence does not happen again.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at five minutes past Eight o'clock.

Deferred Divisions
	 — 
	Immigration

That the draft Asylum (Designated States) (No. 2) Order 2003, which was laid before this House on 17 June, be approved.
	The House divided: Ayes 376, Noes 52.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Social Security

That the draft Social Security (Jobcentre Plus Interviews for Partners) Regulations 2003, which were laid before this House on 25th June, be approved.
	The House divided: Ayes 270, Noes 52.

Question accordingly agreed to.